Over 800 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in China

People receive COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination site in Gulou District of Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, April 9, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Bo)

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- More than 800 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in China as of Tuesday as the country steps up its inoculation drive.

A total of 808.96 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, according to the National Health Commission (NHC) on Wednesday.

The number of doses administered has continued to rise at an ever-faster rate since China hit the landmark figure of 100 million on March 27.

It only took six days for the number of COVID-19 vaccines administered on the Chinese mainland to exceed 800 million doses from 700 million doses, and five days from 600 million doses to 700 million doses, the daily updates by the NHC said.

At least 70 percent of the target population in China is expected to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of this year, said Zeng Yixin, deputy head of the NHC, during a recent interview with Xinhua.

In the eastern Jiangsu Province, the provincial health commission and the Jiangsu branch of the Red Cross Society of China Tuesday set up a vaccination site at a railway construction site for over 1,000 railway builders.

"Most of us are migrant workers and don't have much vaccination information. This on-site vaccination service has provided great convenience for us," said Wang Yongli, a migrant worker from northeast China's Liaoning Province.

As of Tuesday, over 48.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Jiangsu Province.

South China's Guangdong Province is also speeding up the inoculation pace after the latest COVID-19 resurgence occurred in the country's manufacturing heartland in May.

According to the provincial health commission, as of 6 p.m. Sunday, over 71.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Guangdong. Of the total, about 70.8 million doses were administered among people aged 18 to 59.

Shandong, one of the country's most populous provinces, has administered nearly 56.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of noon Monday, with the vaccination rate of people over 18 years old exceeding 51 percent.

A total of 20 vaccines have entered clinical trials in China since last year, according to Zheng Zhongwei, an official with the NHC. "China has been taking the lead in terms of the number of vaccines developed."

"With the production capacity of COVID-19 vaccines expected to increase in the second half of this year, Chinese vaccine enterprises and Chinese vaccines will contribute more to the building of a global community of health for all," Zheng said.