Report: China Considering Foreign Booster Shot to Improve Efficacy of Its Vaccines
Voice of America
China is reportedly considering using a foreign vaccine as a booster shot for people who have been fully inoculated with Chinese vaccines such as Sinovac and Sinopharm.
According to Caixin, a respected Chinese financial magazine, drug regulators in China have completed an expert panel review of the booster vaccine jointly developed by China's Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Fosun Pharma) and German company BioNTech. The booster shot, Fosun-BioNTech COVID-19, is now in the administrative review stage. The report came days after Thailand and Indonesia announced they would switch from doses made in China to Western vaccines. For Beijing, which has been touting the effectiveness of its vaccines for months and donating and selling doses to low- and middle-income countries eager for protection in an effort often referred to as "vaccine diplomacy," the possibility of a booster shot may be seen as a blow.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.