China's epidemic situation under control, says official

China's epidemic situation is stable, as nearly 1.2 billion people have been fully vaccinated, health officials said on Saturday.

He Qinghua, an official with the National Health Commission's disease prevention and control bureau, said that local infection clusters in Yunnan, Heilongjiang provinces, as well as Shanghai, Inner Mongolia autonomous region and parts of Zhejiang province have been gradually brought under control.

The outbreaks in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, as well as in Shaanxi and Guangdong provinces, are still developing and at risk of spreading, he added.

"Recent outbreaks are mainly triggered by imported cases and objects, or cold chain food via aviation or land ports," he said during a briefing.

China had delivered more than 2.66 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of Friday, and fully vaccinated more than 1.18 billion people, the commission's spokesman Mi Feng said.

He added that as the New Year's Day and the Spring Festival are approaching, China will continue to abide by its policy of dynamically zeroing infections and focus on improving its ability to roll out targeted and science-based virus control measures.