Chinese vaccines help developing countries cope with tough COVID-19 situation: US media

NEW YORK -- Chinese vaccines have helped some developing countries in Asia push forward their vaccination drives, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week.

Indonesia is heavily reliant on shots made by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech Ltd, Cambodia has largely used two China-made vaccines to achieve one of the region's highest inoculation level, and the Philippines expects to increase vaccinations with more doses arriving this month, more than half of which will be Chinese, according to the report.

The region's residents will remember "how China locked down quickly, got its own issues under control and provided vaccines," Evan Laksmana, a senior researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Indonesia, was quoted as saying.

Chinese vaccines have also filled part of the void in South Asia, where countries were counting on AstraZeneca shots manufactured in India, but a severe surge in COVID-19 cases there disrupted those supplies, said the journal.

Meanwhile, the report said governments in the West focused just on getting their own populations inoculated after millions of doses arrived.