China said it has so far administered over one billion COVID-19 doses as it accelerated its immunisation programme.
Gatekeepers News reports that as of Saturday a total of 1,010,489,000 doses have been administered according to China’s National Health Commission (NHC).
This is about 40 percent of the 2.5 billion shots administered globally.
China’s Health Commissioned said 100 million doses were given in the five days up to and including Saturday.
The 1 billion figure is remarkable given that China’s rollout was slow at the start.
China only reached its first million administered doses on March 27, two weeks behind the U.S. But the speed increased significantly in May, with more than 500 million shots given over the past month, according to data from the NHC.
“It took China 25 days to climb from 100 million doses to 200 million doses, 16 days to increase from 200 million to 300 million, and six days from 800 million to 900 million,” State media outlet Xinhua reported.
Gatekeepers News reports that Beijing has successfully contained the virus but some recent local outbreaks, including in the Northern Anhui and Liaoning provinces and Guangdong in the South, have arose fears of infections, prompting a race to get vaccinated in affected regions.
China has also started to vaccinate people under the age of 18, with teenagers eligible to receive the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines.
Meanwhile, Beijing is aiming to vaccinate at least 70 percent of eligible people by the end of 2021.