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Alibaba Health, Sinovac in deal to build platform for coronavirus vaccine inoculation

FILE PHOTO: Booth displaying coronavirus vaccine candidate from Sinovac Biotech Ltd in Beijing

BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Alibaba Health Information Technology said on Thursday it has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Chinese coronavirus vaccine developer Sinovac Biotech.

The two firms will jointly build a platform for coronavirus vaccine inoculation in the future, Alibaba Health said in Chinese social media platform Weibo, without giving further details.

Sinovac's coronavirus vaccine candidate CoronaVac, being tested in final-stage large-scale trials in Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey, has already been given to tens of thousands of people via an emergency use program China launched in July.

They include around 90% of the firm's employees and their families.

The two firms will also cooperate in broader areas including online booking of vaccines and post-vaccination health condition follow-up, Alibaba Health said.

(Reporting by Roxanne Liu in Beijing and Meg Shen in Hong Kong; Editing by Jan Harvey)