EU offers free COVID vaccines to China to help curb outbreak- FT

[January 03, 2023]  (Reuters) - The European Union has offered free COVID-19 vaccines to China to help Beijing contain a mass outbreak of the illness, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

The initiative is part of efforts by health commissioner Stella Kyriakides to arrange a European response to the prospect of a wave of infections after Beijing ditched its so-called "zero Covid" policy, the report added, citing EU commission officials, speaking under the condition of anonymity.

"Commissioner Kyriakides has reached out to her Chinese counterparts to offer solidarity and support, including public health expertise as well as through variant-adapted EU vaccine donations,” the report quoted one official as saying.

A security personnel in a protective suit keeps watch as medical workers attend to patients at the fever department of Tongji Hospital, a major facility for patients of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Wuhan, Hubei province, China January 1, 2023. REUTERS/Staff

(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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