CHENGDU, China (Reuters) – China is likely to have produced 3 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of the year, a National Health Commission official said on Saturday.
Zheng Zhongwei, who also leads a team coordinating the country’s COVID-19 vaccine development projects, made the comment during an event in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, southwest China. .
“In the second half of this year, we are fully able to meet our own demand,” Zheng said.
Although manufacturers are rapidly increasing production capacity, it is unclear whether production has increased so rapidly. Production tripled from Feb. 1 through late March to 5 million doses a day, according to the government.
Leading vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech said this month it had doubled its annual production capacity to 2 billion doses after completing its third production plant.
The National Pharmaceutical Group of China (Sinopharm) also has a combined annual production capacity of at least 1.1 billion for two separate vaccines. The company has said it intends to raise capacity to 3 billion but has not specified a deadline.
Sinopharm said on Friday that it will be able to supply 100 million COVID-19 vaccines a month from April.
Report by Roxanne Liu and David Stanway; Edited by Christian Schmollinger and William Mallard