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(Repeats story first published on Thursday, no changes to text)
* COVAX starts delivering 100 mln Sinovac and Sinopharm
doses
* South Africa says it will not take Sinovac's shots
* Indonesia to receive biggest single allocation
* Indonesia gives boosters to those vaccinated with Sinovac
By Francesco Guarascio, Alexander Winning and Stanley
Widianto
BRUSSELS/JOHANNESBURG/JAKARTA, Aug 26 (Reuters) - The World
Health Organization's pandemic programme plans to ship 100
million doses of the Sinovac and Sinopharm COVID-19
shots by the end of next month, mostly to Africa and Asia, in
its first delivery of Chinese vaccines, a WHO document shows.
The Chinese shipments will help the sputtering global COVAX
vaccine sharing programme which is far behind its pledge to
deliver 2 billion doses this year following supply problems and
export curbs imposed by major producer India.
It could also boost Beijing's vaccine diplomacy efforts
despite concerns over the efficacy of the Chinese shots, which
have been turned down or paired with boosters from Western
manufacturers by some of the recipient countries.
Of the 100 million Chinese vaccines, half will be provided
by Sinopharm and half by Sinovac, with deliveries planned for
"July to September 2021", a WHO document dated July 29 says.
About 10 million Sinopharm shots had been shipped by
mid-August, a spokesperson for the Global Alliance for Vaccines
and Immunization (GAVI), which co-leads COVAX along with the
WHO, told Reuters.
Sinopharm, Sinovac and China's trade ministry did not
respond to requests for comment about when the Chinese vaccines
would be delivered.
The Chinese vaccines have been allocated to 60 countries,
mostly in Africa, which is expected to receive a third of the
100 million doses.
However, not all countries want the Chinese vaccines.
South Africa is listed by COVAX as one of Africa's largest
recipients of Chinese shots with an allocation of 2.5 million
Sinovac doses, but a senior health official told Reuters the
country was currently unable to accept the vaccines.
"There is not enough information on effectiveness against
the Delta variant and there is no data on Sinovac in populations
with HIV," said Nicholas Crisp, a deputy director-general in the
health department who is overseeing the vaccine rollout.
"We have not accepted the COVAX Sinovac because it is
premature in our evaluation and planning process," he told
Reuters.
Sinovac did not immediately respond to a request for comment
about South Africa's stance.
Nigeria, the main recipient of Chinese shots in Africa under
COVAX with an allocation of nearly 8 million Sinopharm doses,
has approved that vaccine but has called it a "potential" option
for the country's inoculation campaign.
BOOSTERS TO CHINESE SHOTS
A GAVI spokesperson declined to comment on South Africa and
Nigeria and noted that other countries had not been included in
this round, with one of the reasons being that some had decided
not to receive the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines.
Officials from Kenya, Rwanda, Togo and Somalia, which are
entitled to smaller COVAX shipments, said they had no concerns
about the Chinese shots because they had been vetted by the WHO
and more people needed to be inoculated as soon as possible.
COVAX's allocation of Chinese vaccines comes after the WHO
gave emergency approval to the Sinopharm shot in May and Sinovac
in June. GAVI has secured a combined supply of up to 550 million
vaccines from the two companies until next year.
Including the Chinese vaccines, the facility expects to
deliver about 500 million doses by the end of September, its
latest forecast shows. It has so far shipped 215 million
vaccines, mostly AstraZeneca's.
Ukraine is the only country in Europe on the COVAX list for
Chinese shots and is set to receive about 160,000 Sinovac doses.
Asian countries are expected to receive more than 25 million
Chinese vaccines, of which nearly 11 million Sinovac doses would
go to Indonesia, making it the largest recipient of Chinese
shots through COVAX. Other vaccines will go to countries in
Latin America and the Middle East.
Indonesia has decided to give boosters, largely with the
Moderna vaccine, to healthcare workers - who have
mostly been immunised with Sinovac shots.
That mirrored similar moves in other countries that have
deployed Sinovac shots, such as Brazil and Chile.
Healthcare workers are a small portion of those vaccinated
in Indonesia, but the booster policy has been interpreted by
many as a sign of decreasing confidence in Sinovac.
Asked why Indonesia was buying the vaccine, of which the
country is a major recipient also through bilateral deals, an
official at the Indonesian health ministry told Reuters:
"Sinovac could assure us of the amount they could deliver."
(Writing and reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio;
reporting by Alex Winning in Johannesburg, Stanley Widianto in
Jakarta, Libby George in Lagos, Roxanne Liu in Beijing, Maggie
Fick in Nairobi, Clement Uwiringiyimana in Kigali, John Zodzi in
Lome and Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; Editing by David Clarke)
