Public good

Wang Wenbin, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said that China has been acting on its commitment of making China-developed COVID-19 vaccines a global public good.

China last week listed Cambodia among the developing countries that will get free doses of the Chinese vaccine.

After receiving a batch of Sinopharm vaccines from China, Cambodia began its vaccination campaign on Wednesday.

Hun Manet, the eldest son of Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen, got the first dose of the jab at the Calmette Hospital in the capital Phnom Penh.

"Finally Cambodia began officially the vaccination program for its people. This is the result of fruitful cooperation between Cambodia and China, the ironclad friends," Hun Sen said on his official Facebook page.

Globally, there were more than 106.9 million confirmed COVID-19 infections, with more than 2.3 million deaths as of early Wednesday, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University said.

The European continent remains under strain as the new variant first detected in the United Kingdom poses a big challenge to the region.

All travelers arriving in the UK from abroad will face a double-testing procedure for novel coronavirus while in a 10-day quarantine, the government announced on Tuesday.

Xinhua, agencies, and Jonathan Powell in London contributed to this story.