China can hit 500m dose annual capacity of CanSinoBIO vaccine this year

BEIJING: Production capacity for a COVID-19 vaccine developed by CanSino Biologics Inc (CanSinoBIO) and a military-backed institute could hit an annual half a billion doses this year, a scientist leading research for the shot told state media.

"There is no problem that the annual production capacity can reach 500 million this year," Chen Wei, a researcher at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, said in an interview with China Central Television late on Friday.

Chen did not say how many doses of the single-shot Ad5-nCoV vaccine, among the four regimens China has approved for public use, will in fact be manufactured in 2021.