China said it was in favour of better access for all countries to COVID-19 vaccines.
The country did not indicate any concrete action amid a debate on the waiving of intellectual property protections for the jabs.
“All countries have the responsibility to fight the pandemic and all are equal in acquiring vaccine,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, on Thursday.
Webin said this when he was responding to questions by journalists on whether China would support a recent U.S. proposal to waive property rights to ramp up the global vaccine production.
Wenbin said, “China supports positive discussions” and the framework of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), adding that, “we believe all parties should have constructive and positive discussions under the framework of WTO.”
“We are also distributing vaccines to countries in urgent need.
“We will continue to make the vaccine a public good and to contribute to increasing the affordability and accessibility of vaccines in developing countries,” the spokesperson said.
More than 100 WTO member countries want to suspend patents on the vaccines to enable more companies to produce vaccines in more countries.
Waiving the patents would allow poorer countries to produce their own vaccines.
Current vaccine-producing countries had been accused of hoarding the vaccines and of being more concerned about protecting profits for the pharmaceutical industry.
The U.S. government had said earlier on Wednesday that it supported the waiver of intellectual property protections on vaccines against COVID-19 in order to battle the pandemic more effectively.
According to official figures, China has already provided over 100 million vaccine doses to some 80 countries and three international organisations.
It remains unclear, however, how many of these doses have been donated to other countries and how many had been sold at market price. (dpa/NAN)
