Status: 12/21/2022 4:59 p.m
Germans living in China will soon be able to be vaccinated against Corona with the BioNTech vaccine. The federal government has sent the first vaccine doses to China. However, there is no general approval there.
The federal government has sent a first delivery of the Corona vaccine from the manufacturer BioNTech to China. Initially, only the approximately 20,000 Germans living in the People’s Republic could be vaccinated with it, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.
Beijing promised this in a diplomatic note verbale. In return, Chinese in Germany could be vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine Sinovac, for which there is no general approval in Germany.
Corona vaccine should arrive today
A first delivery of the BioNTech vaccine should arrive in China later today, according to Hebestreit. BioNTech’s vaccine would be the first non-Chinese corona vaccine administered in China. However, the foreign mRNA vaccines are not officially approved in China.
According to Hebestreit, the federal government is trying to ensure that other foreigners living in China also receive a vaccination offer with the BioNTech vaccine in a next step.
government commitment
During his visit to Beijing in early November, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) received the Chinese government’s promise that Germans should have access to an mRNA vaccine on site. Details remained unclear at the time.
According to “Spiegel” information, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is said to have offered Chinese President Xi Jinping massive support with mRNA vaccines in a telephone call. Accordingly, Steinmeier said that Germany could immediately deliver a very high three-digit million number of BioNTech cans to China.
Infection numbers are increasing in China
In the People’s Republic, the number of infections is currently rising sharply after the abrupt departure from the restrictive zero-Covid policy. However, independent data are not yet available. However, Western experts are concerned about the development, as the vaccination rate in China for the elderly is relatively low.