China triples COVID-vaccine daily output to 5 million doses from Feb.

Workers on a production line at Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine facility. /CFP

Daily COVID-19 vaccine output inChina has reached about 5 million doses, tripling the 1.5 million-dose daily production rate on February 1, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

China aims to vaccinate 40 percent of its over 1.4 billion citizens by the middle of 2021. Xiao Yaqing, China's minister of industry and information technology, said that the country has already supplied more than 100 million doses domestically.

According to the country's National Health Commission, a total of 82.85 million vaccine doses were delivered by Tuesday, compared with 74.96 million administered by the end of Saturday, indicating a significant acceleration of vaccination.

A daily average of 2.6 million doses were given between March 21 and 23, up from about 1.7 million between March 15 and 20. Feng Zijian, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said a substantial increase in vaccinations could be expected from April.

Sinovac Biotech, a Chinese vaccine maker, announced on Monday it had supplied 160 million doses to 18 countries and regions with more than 70 million doses administered domestically and globally.