China says no need to vaccinate entire population against COVID-19

China looks to prioritise frontline workers and high-risk populations in its fight against coronavirus as the country's top medical official has said that not everyone in China will need to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

"Since the first wave of Covid-19 appeared in Wuhan, China has already survived the impact of Covid-19 several times," Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said at a vaccine summit in the city of Shenzhen on Saturday.

There isn't currently a need for mass vaccination at this stage -- though that could change if another serious outbreak takes place, Gao said.

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The policy marks China apart from many Western governments that have outlined plans to introduce mass public vaccination drives.

China's reported virus numbers have stayed low since the spring -- apart from a few clusters in the northeastern Jilin province in May, an outbreak in Beijing in June, and another in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi in July.

Gao said any potential vaccine would instead be prioritised for those on the front lines -- medical workers, Chinese nationals working overseas in virus hostpots, and people working in dense, high-risk environments like restaurants, schools or cleaning services.

Meanwhile, China has been one of the biggest players in the global race to develop a coronavirus vaccine.

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of vaccines, and can supply more than 1 billion doses of a vaccine annually from 40 manufacturers across the country, according to the 2018-2022 China Human Vaccine Industry Report.

Of the more than 30 vaccines currently in human trials globally, nine are from China.