Vaccine exports slump

China’s vaccine manufacturers exported 97 percent fewer Covid vaccines in April than they did after peak exports in September 2021, with only 6.8 million vaccine doses exported last month, according to Unicef, Nikkei Asia reports. The reason for this is the lower effectiveness of Chinese vaccines against the Omicron variant. This is a major setback for the People’s Republic’s vaccine diplomacy. By comparison, nearly 56 million doses of the vaccine developed by Biontech and Pfizer were exported in April. While that also represents a 71 percent drop from September 2021, Biontech vaccine doses still outnumbered Chinese exports by more than eight times.