Chile Approves Use Of China's Sinovac Vaccine Against COVID-19 - Health Ministry

BUENOS AIRES (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th January, 2021) Chile has approved the use of China's Sinovac vaccine against the coronavirus, the country's health ministry said on Wednesday.

"Public Health Institute of Chile has approved the use of Sinovac vaccine against COVID-19 in Chile," the ministry wrote on its Twitter account.

Chile was the first country in South America to launch its nationwide vaccination on December 24. Chile's government plans to inoculate 15 million people by mid-2021 to establish herd immunity of its almost 19-million-strong population.

The country already reserved over 30 million doses of vaccines produced by various companies, including Pfizer/BioNTech, Sinovac, Johnson&Johnson and AstraZeneca. On Friday, Chile's Under-Secretary for International Economic Relations Rodrigo Yanez said that the country's government was also considering the acquirement of the Sputnik V vaccine developed by Russia's Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology.