China pledges another 1bil Covid-19 vaccine doses for Africa

China will deliver another 1 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Africa and encourage Chinese companies to invest no less than US$10 billion in the continent over the next three years, President Xi Jinping said on Monday.

The country has already supplied nearly 200 million doses to Africa, where vaccination rates have fallen behind amid growing concern over the spread of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which was first identified in southern Africa.