Chile approves Chinese vaccine for emergency use

Chilean health authorities approved the emergency use of China's Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, although with certain restrictions. The local Institute of Public Health has recommended the use of the vaccine for people between 18 and 59 years old. Chile started vaccinating its health workers and elderly population with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in December.

The vaccine from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac Life Sciences has already been licensed in China, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil. Chile expects to receive up to 2 million monthly doses, according to data provided to Chilean media by officials of the Catholic University who were in charge of the clinical trials. Chile received a fourth shipment of Pfizer-BioNTech laboratories, carrying 44,000 doses. In total, around 150,000 have arrived in the country. So far, more than 45,000 people have been inoculated and 8,359 of those have already received the second dose, according to health authorities. Chile has reported more than 680,000 coronavirus cases and 17,594 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.