Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday called for mutual recognition of vaccines against coronavirus disease (Covid-19) based on the emergency use listing of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the state media reported. Speaking at the 16th Group of 20 Leaders’ Summit via a video link, Xi proposed a global vaccine cooperation initiative that included suggestions like encouraging vaccine companies to transfer technology to developing countries.

“Treat all kinds of vaccines fairly, and promote mutual recognition of vaccines based on the World Health Organization’s vaccine emergency use list,” Xinhua quoted the Chinese president as saying.

Xi said that China has already provided over 1.6 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines to more than 100 countries and international organisations and is working with 16 countries for joint vaccine production. He called for increasing the supply of vaccines to developing countries and implementing the global vaccination target set by the UN health agency.

“China is willing to work with all parties to improve the accessibility and affordability of vaccines in developing countries and make positive contributions in building a global vaccine defence line,” Xi added.

Of the all Covid-19 vaccines China has developed, two of them, one from Sinovac Biotech and one from Sinopharm, have been included in the WHO’s emergency use list. The other Covid-19 vaccines approved for use by WHO are Moderna mRNA-1273, Pfizer/BioNTech BNT162b2, Oxford/AstraZeneca AZD1222, Covishield, and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) Ad26.COV2.S.

While China has administered Covid shots to about 1.07 billion of its 1.41 billion population, according to the national health commission (NHC) data, several provinces have reported fresh virus outbreaks.

On Friday, Mainland China reported 59 new local cases of infection, its highest number of daily new cases since September 16. Reports suggest that more than 2000 tourists visiting China’s inner Mongolia region have been sent to hotels to undergo two weeks of quarantine.

(With inputs from agencies)