China kicks off emergency Covid vaccination in Wuhan

Beijing: The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the novel Coronavirus emerged a year ago before it became a pandemic and upended life across the globe, has started the emergency COVID-19 vaccination on some key groups, a senior health official said on Tuesday, even as China is yet to officially certify its multiple vaccines.

The vaccination, available at 48 designated clinics in 15 districts, began on December 24, targeting certain groups of people aged between 18 and 59 years, He Zhenyu, deputy director of the centre for disease control and prevention in Wuhan, told the media in Wuhan.

Those receiving the vaccine need to take two shots with an interval of four weeks, the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted He as saying.

As per the official Chinese time-line, the first cases of Coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, on December 31 last year. The city of 11 million people went into lockdown from January 23, followed by the entire Hubei province.

The Hubei province and Wuhan lifted a prolonged lockdown on April 8 this year after the virus was brought under control. The death toll from the virus in Hubei province stood at 4,512, including 3,869 in Wuhan.

Hubei has so far reported 68,134 confirmed COVID-19 cases in total, including 50,339 in Wuhan.

In May this year, Wuhan conducted COVID-19 tests on almost all of its population following increasing concerns of a rebound of the pandemic, but the city reported fewer number of cases in the following months.

Chinese officials in some of the cities, including Beijing, have been conducting mass testing of people in the past few days in localities where cases have sprung up. China's National Health Commission announced on Tuesday that 27 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the Chinese mainland on Monday.