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China reaches milestone 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses

Chinese has administered more than 1 billion doses of coronavirus vaccine, its health officials said. Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI
Chinese has administered more than 1 billion doses of coronavirus vaccine, its health officials said. Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo

June 21 (UPI) -- Health officials in China said they have administrated more than 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

The Chinese National Health Commission said in a statement Sunday that it's administered 1,010,489,000 doses.

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The commission had said Friday 945 million doses had been given.

State-run Xinhua reported Sunday that China has been accelerating its vaccination campaign and that it took 25 days to go from 100 million to 200 million doses, 16 days to climb to 300 million and six days to go from 800 million to 900 million.

Zeng Yixin, deputy head of the NHC, said officials seek to inoculate at least 70% of its 1.4 billion population by the end of the year.

According to COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker, six vaccines have been approved for use in China.

China, where the virus first emerged late in 2019 before spreading the world over, began ramping up its vaccination campaign in April, going from 3 and 4 million doses delivered daily to a high of more than 20 million on June 5, according to information curated by Oxford University's Our World In Data Project.

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The tracking site said China has also gone from about 12.8 doses per 100 people in mid-April to 68.8 on Friday. For comparison, India, which is the second most populated nation, has administered 19.6 doses per 100 people.

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