ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – A new cavernous airport cargo terminal in the Ethiopian capital is the center of a vast supply chain that China brings together to accelerate the delivery of its coronavirus vaccines and deepen its influence in the developing world.
At one end is a football-sized freezer to store vials from Chinese state-controlled drug companies. At the other is a control room with a wall of computer monitors, where Chinese and Ethiopian technicians will monitor the temperatures of each batch.
This week, more than a million doses of China’s new Covid-19 vaccinations will travel here, according to Ethiopian Airlines officials. Thousands of doses have already passed through them, they and Ugandan officials said. More deliveries would be reached through a partnership between Chinese technology giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Ethiopian Airlines, state airline officials said.
At stake is a potential soft-power prize: the goodwill of politicians and people in the developing world who need cheap Covid vaccines and the prestige of being seen as a nation with the ability to act as a guardian of global public health.
For months, the Chinese government, state-owned enterprises and private companies have laid the groundwork for vaccination in Africa in the Middle East and Latin America. They assembled a supply chain to maintain temperature control from the point of manufacture to each stage of distribution – and beyond, the “Silk Road of Health”, as Beijing called it.