<span style="color: #222222;">China has formally joined COVAX, the global initiative for COVID-19 vaccine by signing an agreement with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance on Thursday.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying announced this in a statement issued today.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The statement did not give details on the level of support Beijing will provide to the initiative.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The COVAX facility, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), aims to deliver at least 2 billion doses of vaccines by the end of 2021.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The WHO had said it had been negotiating with China for its participation in the initiative, with Russia and the United States so far choosing not to join.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">More than 150 countries have joined the WHO led initiative to develop, produce, and fairly distribute an effective COVID-19 vaccine. China is the biggest economy so far to join COVAX which aims to create a 15 billion dollars corpus for delivering at least 2 billion doses of vaccines by the end of 2021.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Ms. Hua also said that China has ample COVID-19 vaccine production capacity and it will be provided to developing countries as a priority when vaccines are ready.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The statement also said that China hopes more capable countries will also join and support COVAX.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">A report issued by the WHO in September has given an idea of how the facility will distribute vaccine doses, when they become available.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The WHO estimates that an allocation of doses equal to 20% of a country's population should be enough to vaccinate people at the highest priority.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">In the initial phases, when doses are expected to be in short supply, countries will receive doses in tranches until they have enough to vaccinate 3% of their populations.</span><br />