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HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people in China have received a Covid-19 vaccine that has been approved for emergency use.
Chinese vaccines have been administered prior to final regulatory approval for general use.
It is an unusual move that raises ethical and safety questions as companies and governments around the world compete to develop a vaccine that will stop the spread of the coronavirus.
A popular writer and columnist who received the vaccine said he had no reaction after the first dose. But after the second dose, Kan Chai felt dizzy and said, “When I was driving on the road, I suddenly felt a little dizzy, like I was driving drunk.
“So I found a place especially to stop the car, get some rest and then I felt better.”
Chinese companies drew attention after administering the vaccine to their top executives and leading researchers before human trials began to test its safety and efficacy.
In recent months, they’ve injected a much larger number under an emergency use designation approved in June, and that number appears set to rise.
A health official said China, which claims to have largely controlled the disease, must take steps to prevent it from returning.
An outside expert has questioned the need for emergency use when the virus is no longer spreading in the country where it was first detected.
It is not clear exactly who and how many people have injected so far, but Chinese vaccine manufacturers have offered some clues.
Sinopharm’s state subsidiary, CNBG, has administered the vaccine to 350,000 people outside of its clinical trials, which have about 40,000 people enrolled, a senior CNBG executive said recently.
Another company, SinoVac, has injected 90% of its employees and family members, or around 3,000 people, mostly under the emergency use provision, CEO Yin Weidong said.
It has also provided tens of thousands of rounds of its CoronaVac for the Beijing city government.
Another candidate developed jointly by the military and CanSino, a biopharmaceutical company, has been approved for emergency use in military personnel.
Now large Chinese companies, including telecommunications giant Huawei and broadcaster Phoenix TV, have announced that they are working with Sinopharm to obtain the vaccine for their employees.
Several people claiming to work in “front-line” organizations have said on social media that their workplaces have offered vaccines for around 1,000 yuan.
In established but limited practice, experimental drugs have historically been approved for use while they are still in the third and final phase of human trials. Chinese companies have four vaccines in phase three: two from Sinopharm and one from SinoVac and CanSino.
National health commission official Zheng Zhongwei told a press conference that the Chinese government referenced the World Health Organization’s emergency use principles to create its own through a strict process.
Zheng said there have been no serious side effects in clinical trials.
Under the emergency rule, high-risk personnel, such as medical and customs workers and those who have to work abroad, have priority access, he said. He declined to provide exact numbers.
“In the case of China, the pressure to prevent imported infections and domestic resurgence remains enormous,” Zheng added.
However, Diego Silva, a professor of bioethics at the University of Sydney, said that giving vaccines to hundreds of thousands outside of clinical trials has “no scientific merit” in China, where there are currently very few cases of local transmission and inbound arrivals. they are centrally quarantined.
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“If it’s in the United States, where the virus is still spreading, that’s a little different, but in a country like China it doesn’t seem to make sense to me,” he said.
“Because there is not enough virus in China locally to deduce anything, it is introducing a lot of other factors,” injecting people out of the trials.
Zheng said that all those injected under emergency use are being closely monitored for any adverse health effects.
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