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It is false that China has bought a billion vaccines against covid-19 under development in Australia and will not use any of the immunizers produced by its laboratories and universities. The claims were originally made in a Facebook post that reached more than 22,000 shares since December 17. This week other pages and profiles replicated the false information.
There are at least 13 vaccines under development in the country and the verified content does not consider that China has granted, since November, special authorization for the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines – both developed there – to be applied to the population of the country considered high risk, Yes from doctors and health professionals. According to NPR, the process was intensified in November this year with the Sinopharm vaccine. According to CNN, since July, Sinopharm has applied to some workers in “high-risk” professions. Sinovac had its entire phase 3 carried out in Brazil, due to an agreement between the Chinese government and the Butantan Institute. According to the São Paulo state government, the Asian country awaits the results of the effectiveness and safety tests carried out here, in addition to Chile, Turkey and Indonesia.
In Australia, a partnership between the biotech company CSL and the University of Queensland in the north of the country would produce millions of doses of the vaccine. However, an adverse effect in the tests halted the clinical trial and the Australian government has announced that it will review the vaccination plan. Australia then ordered more doses of AstraZeneca, a laboratory that develops the vaccine from Oxford and Novovax, an American biotech company.
How do we verify it?
We looked for the Crowdtangle network analysis tool when the first social media posts were published, in Portuguese or other languages, with the buzz. The first publication is on December 10 on Facebook, by a man from São Paulo, with no identified profession, named Diogo Oliveira Tão. Diogo does not have any other public social networks associated with his Facebook profile.
We contacted Diogo and searched for information on vaccines in production in Australia, in local reports and on the websites of biopharmaceutical companies involved with COVID-19 immunizers.
We also search the World Health Organization (WHO) list for all vaccines against the new coronavirus that are already in the clinical trial stage. We checked the websites of these listed companies or entities to find out which ones were Chinese and whether they had known relationships with the Chinese government.
Comprava carried out this verification based on scientific information and official data on the new coronavirus and covid-19 available on December 17, 2020.
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Vaccines produced by China
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) survey, updated on December 17, there are currently 56 candidate vaccines in clinical trials (in human trials), while 166 are in the preclinical stage. Among the vaccines already in clinical trials, at least 13 have been developed by Chinese companies or research institutes in China.
Only one of the vaccines developed by the Chinese has an agreement for distribution in Brazil: CoronaVac, from Sinovac Biotech. The agreement with the São Paulo government provides for the importation and production of 60 million doses, and the technology will be transferred to the Butantan Institute, which began producing the vaccine earlier this month. By March, the state plans to have 9 million doses of CoronaVac, including imported from China and produced here.
Besides Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, Chile and China intend to use the vaccine. China has even granted special authorization for the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines, both developed there, to be applied to the country’s population considered high-risk, such as doctors and health professionals.
However, there are no reports that Sinovac is used in China. According to the São Paulo state government, in recent press conferences, China awaits the results of phase 3 tests, conducted exclusively in Brazil, to initiate authorizations. Also according to the government of São Paulo, these data will be sent on the 23rd.
China conducted phases 1 and 2 of the CoronaVac tests. Part of the agreement between the Butantan Institute and Sinovac Biotech included that, since phase 3 was carried out by the São Paulo government, the price paid per dose of the vaccine was substantially below the international market.
Australia vaccines
One of the vaccines being tested in Australia was developed by Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL) in partnership with the University of Queensland. The clinical trial with participants began in July of this year. In September, the government reached an initial agreement to produce the vaccine when it was ready. However, according to CSL, the antibodies generated by the vaccine interfered with the test results.
In a statement, the laboratory stated that there were no more serious adverse reactions in the 216 participants. However, the data showed the generation of antibodies against a protein in the vaccine and the immune system responded to these antibodies by changing the results as if they were “false positives.” In conversation with the Australian government, the laboratory decided to suspend the tests.
Author of the publication
We contacted the author of the publication, he claimed error, however, he did not remove the content. We also did not find other social networks of the author.
Why do we investigate?
In its third phase, Comprava investigates questionable content related to the public policies of the federal government and the new Coronavirus pandemic. False content hurts the work of investigators and reduces people’s trust in authorities. The Facebook post was shared 13,000 times in less than a week, and new posts with the same fake content appeared during the growth of viralization.
Comprava has already reviewed a post that hinted that China will not use the vaccine itself.
False, for Comprava, is content that is invented or that has been modified to change its original meaning and deliberately spread to spread a lie.
* The material was produced by vehicles belonging to the Comprava project: Estadão y Rádio Nordeste
