World needs Chinese vaccines to fill supply shortage: media

WASHINGTON -- The world needs China's vaccines as they have filled the vaccine shortage caused by some rich countries' hoarding of COVID-19 vaccines, an opinion piece published on Bloomberg's website said on Friday.

"By hoarding vaccines, the Western world has left many in emerging economies uncovered. While more than 848 million doses have been administered, countries with the highest incomes are getting vaccinated 25 times faster than those with the lowest," said the article written by Clara Ferreira Marques, a columnist with Bloomberg.

According to Bloomberg's COVID-19 tracker, the United States, which makes up about 4 percent of the world's population, has 24 percent of vaccinations, the article said.

What's more, the article noted that the Chinese vaccines are highly effective against severe diseases, which can significantly reduce the number of hospitalizations.

"For emerging economies like the Philippines or Brazil, it's important to stop infection, but vital to avoid severe cases and to keep people out of hospitals, where they can rapidly overwhelm healthcare networks that are rickety at the best of times," the report said.

The article also cited Indonesia as an example and said that as a major recipient of Sinovac doses that needs to vaccinate 180 million people within a year, the country is not wrong that "the best vaccine is the one that's available."

"A population that has very high coverage of Sinovac would certainly have far fewer severe COVID-19 cases, even with substantial infection and transmission," Benjamin Cowling, professor at the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health, was quoted by the article as saying.

"That's a win of sorts," Cowling points out.