The World Health Organization announced on 7 May that it has approved the vaccine against Covid-19 from China’s state-owned pharmaceutical company, Sinopharm, for emergency use.

The vaccine, one of the main Chinese vaccines already given to hundreds of millions of people in China and beyond, becomes the first Covid-19 vaccine developed by a non-Western country to receive WHO approval.

It is also the first time the World Health Organization has approved emergency use of any Chinese vaccine for any infectious disease.