Beijing | Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday that China will strive to provide 2 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to the world this year, and pledged $100 million for Covax’s international vaccine distribution system to the poorest countries.

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“Throughout this year, China will strive to provide two billion doses of vaccine to the world,” the Chinese president said in a message to a video forum dedicated to cooperation in the field of vaccination.

He added that China has also pledged to donate $100 million to the Covax system, according to official CCTV television.

The delta variant has now been detected in China, where the number of daily infections has reached its highest levels in months, a situation that has prompted the authorities to carry out massive population testing.

On July 16, President Xi pledged $3 billion in aid to support poor countries in tackling the coronavirus outbreak during an online meeting of the heads of state of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

The financial aid aims to help developing countries overcome the social and economic consequences of the pandemic.

Last week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that China has already provided more than 700 million doses to other countries since the beginning of the year.

For his part, US President Joe Biden announced that the United States has donated more than 100 million vaccines abroad.

In September, the United States will begin distributing an additional 500 million doses of the promised Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to 100 poor countries.