ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – A cavernous new airport cargo terminal in Ethiopia’s capital is the center of a massive supply network that China is assembling to accelerate the delivery of its coronavirus vaccines – and increase its influence in developing countries.
At one end is a football field-sized freezer to hold bottles from Chinese state-controlled pharmaceutical companies. On the other side is a control room with a wall of computer monitors where Chinese and Ethiopian technicians monitor the temperature of each batch.
According to Ethiopian Airlines officials, more than a million doses of China’s new Covid-19 vaccinations will pass through this week. Thousands of doses have already been passed, she and Ugandan officials said. More deliveries will come through a partnership between Chinese technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Ethiopian Airlines, officials from the state-owned airline said.
At stake is a potential soft-power prize: the goodwill of politicians and people across the developing world in need of cheap Covid vaccines, and the prestige of being seen as a nation with the ability to act as the guardian of global public health.
For months, the Chinese government, state-owned and private companies have laid the groundwork for a vaccination attempt from Africa to the Middle East and Latin America. They put together a supply chain that would maintain temperature control from the point of manufacture to every step of distribution – and beyond the ‘Health Silk Road’, as Beijing has called it.