Peru has joined developing nations from North Africa to the Andes in counting on China for help. For these customers, the vaccines developed in Chinese laboratories and now being distributed globally could hold the solution to a massive problem: how to inoculate their populations after bigger and richer nations have pushed them to the back of the line for the more reliable vaccines developed in the West.

For Beijing, which has invested heavily in a region seen by Washington as America’s backyard, its vaccine diplomacy could be a double win: a way to open new markets for its pharmaceutical products while building goodwill in Latin America, a region where it has long sought to expand its influence.

But the opacity of the Chinese operations and the lack of published clinical data on the vaccines are raising questions about effectiveness and safety — and about the ability of Chinese laboratories to deliver millions of doses in double-quick time. In some countries, complaints over delays are already building.

For countries such …continued .
[Source: Washington Post]