Turkey has joined a growing list of more than 100 countries that, according to Chinese state media, have ordered Covid injections produced by Chinese companies despite an unusual delay in releasing data on the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
China controversially launched the emergency vaccine use program in July this year, primarily targeting frontline workers and those traveling abroad. Over the next four months, the government-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) has said that one million people in China have taken the experimental vaccine. But Beijing has not released any information on the safety or efficacy of the vaccine that relies on a killed virus, similar to how polio immunizations work.
The first information on this account came from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which approved the Sinopharm vaccine on December 9, citing data from its phase III clinical trials. The UAE Ministry of Health said the trials had shown 86% efficacy, less than the 94.1% reported for the Moderna vaccine and 95% for the Pfizer-BioNTech collaboration. Abu Dhabi’s decision to announce the 86% figure is unusual in that there has been no statement from the company on the efficacy of its vaccine.
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“Usually [clinical trial] the data is disclosed by the sponsor and eventually published in a peer-reviewed journal, ”Peter Shapiro, GlobalData senior director of medicines, told Nikkei Asia.
Bahrain followed in the footsteps of the UAE days later. And the first shipment of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine authorized by a close ally of the United Arab Emirates landed in Egypt shortly after. By then, Indonesia had received 1.2 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine made by the experimental Covid-19 vaccine from Chinese company Sinovac Biotech, CoronaVac; another 1.8 million doses will arrive in January.
Analysts have described the Chinese effort to promote and push its vaccines as an opportunity for Beijing to strengthen its international influence in the developing world, particularly after funding for President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative slowed down. and criticism of his handling of the emergency increased. of the coronavirus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. It was in this context that President Xi, in May, promised the World Health Assembly to make the Chinese vaccine a “global public good.”
“It has also become a tool to increase China’s global influence and solve … geopolitical problems,” Huang Yanzhong, senior global health researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP earlier this month.
Furthermore, analysts caution that vaccine diplomacy, as China’s extension to the developing world has been called, may not be unconditional.
“Beijing can use its vaccine donations to advance its regional agenda, particularly on sensitive issues such as its claims in the South China Sea,” Ardhitya Eduard Yeremia and Klaus Heinrich Raditio said, according to the AFP news agency, in a published article. this month by the Singapore-based Yusof Ishak Institute.
It also makes economic sense for China. According to an estimate by Hong Kong-based brokerage Essence Securities cited by the news agency, China could tap into gold at the bottom of the pyramid, generating around $ 2.8 billion in sales if Beijing can capture just the 15% of the vaccine market in the middle. and low-income countries.
However, not everyone is willing to bet on Chinese vaccines in the absence of data on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.
On the one hand, Cambodia, China’s closest ally in the region, has revealed plans to acquire 1 million doses for the first batch of Covid-19 vaccines. However, he has made it clear that he will not go for untested vaccines, but will instead use the United Nations-backed Covax facility that subsidizes vaccines for 92 low-income countries.
“Cambodia is not a garbage can … and not a place for a vaccine trial,” Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said this month, a clear sign that Phnom Penh is unlikely, at this stage, to take Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on his offer in October to supply vaccines with priority.
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