Western countries, China must "now cooperate to achieve global COVID vaccine coverage": media

LONDON, June 19 (Xinhua) -- The West and China "now have no choice but to collaborate on vaccinating the world," as international scientific and public health authorities have confirmed that vaccines made by Chinese companies actually work, according to a recent report by The Guardian.

"When it comes to vaccines, G7 countries' adversarial attitude towards China must take a moral pause. COVAX and international governments looking for doses should increase collaboration, rather than competition, with vaccine companies across the world -- including those in China," said the British newspaper.

It advocated that global public health initiatives must be careful to keep putting evidence and necessity, rather than geopolitical rivalry, first, and late approval for Sinopharm and Sinovac's vaccines "undoubtedly cost many lives globally."

The report also called on the world to rationally view the relationship between Chinese-made vaccines and the country's soft power abroad.

"Reducing the conversation to purely political motivations extrapolated via headlines ignores hard truths," it stressed, adding that vaccine hoarding by the West during the pandemic's early months has put COVAX far behind its target of vaccinating 2.3 billion people by the end of the year.