| There is a glaring gap between the noble ideal of bringing vaccines to all corners of the world and what has actually been delivered to Covax, the facility backed by the World Health Organization to ensure equitable distribution of life-saving doses against Covid. So it's turning to China to fill the void. Starting this month, vaccines from China's Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech could gradually overtake those from Western companies like AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna as the main source of immunizations for Covax to supply to the developing world. Gavi, the vaccine alliance, reached a deal to purchase as many as 170 million and 380 million doses from Sinopharm and Sinovac, respectively, through the first half of next year.
So far, Covax has only shipped about 102 million doses—a far cry from its target to deliver 1.8 billion by early 2022. The Serum Institute of India was supposed to churn out most of the AstraZeneca vaccine for Covax but was hamstrung by an export ban imposed in the wake of the deadly outbreaks in the country.  A member of the Economic Freedom Fighters demands that vaccines from Russia and China be supplied to South Africans. Photographer: PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP The Chinese vaccine order came after the two shots were cleared earlier this year by the World Health Organization for emergency use—the sine qua non for any shot to be eligible for Covax purchase and distribution. It has taken the Chinese vaccine makers much longer to get that stamp of approval than their Western peers as they have been slow to provide comprehensive data to validate their shots' safety and efficacy. But it hasn't stopped the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines from reaching developing countries, many of which were happy to accept anything that came their way after rich countries snapped up enough supplies of Western shots to vaccinate their populations many times over. The Chinese shots have faced some doubt over their efficacy, which ranges from 50% to almost 80% in trials and real-world studies, less than the levels seen in messenger RNA vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer. That has raised concern they may not be effective in taming the virus's more infectious variants. But they do work to slash severe disease, hospitalization and death from Covid. And for the under-resourced parts of the world, it's more of a matter of life and death when it comes to vaccination rather than which shot gives people the best protection.—Dong Lyu | 
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