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Three China-made vaccines that are supposedly safe and effective against Covid-19 made their debut at a local trade fair, the first to be held for domestic and foreign traders in Beijing since the epidemic first broke out in the country. at the end of December.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will preside over an honor and award ceremony that is expected to formally unveil the vaccines in the Great Hall of the People on Tuesday (September 8) morning.
The leader is expected to proclaim China’s victory against the virus at the event and congratulate scientists and researchers who have worked on vaccines, including the country’s top pulmonologist, Zhong Nanshan, and Major General of the People’s Liberation Army ( PLA), Chen Wei, who has led the military investigation. .
The nation has gone 50 days without local infections, although there has been an increase in imported cases.
China National Biotech Group, a subsidiary of state-owned conglomerate China National Pharmaceutical Group Co, Ltd. (SinoPharm) and Nasdaq-listed Sinovac Biotech Ltd, are showing their respective vaccines at the fair, which are nearing the end of their clinical trials. end of third stage.
Both are reportedly still pending regulatory approval for mass production.
Xinhua and the Chinese News Service quoted the two drug makers as saying that the three vaccines would be ready to hit the market by the end of the year and that annual production could be increased to 600 million doses, enough to inoculate about half. of the population of China.
SinoPharm Senior Vice President of Sales Luo Linyun told reporters that one of the two candidate vaccines would be manufactured in Wuhan, the initial ground zero for the disease before it spreads around the world.
For the final human trials, SinoPharm recruited 50,000 participants and retrieved patients from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Peru, Morocco and Argentina, among other places, Luo said.
The trial has been purposely conducted on a broad spectrum of breeds with possible exposure to different virus strains to determine the safety and efficacy of the two vaccines. Luo added that since the coronavirus had been largely “defeated” in China, most of the trials have been conducted abroad in countries that are still dealing with Covid-19 outbreaks.
He also confirmed earlier media reports that Beijing has delivered “emergency blows” to immigration officials and essential medical workers since July to protect high-risk personnel. Their experiences have been monitored as part of third-stage human trials.
SinoPharm’s two vaccines are reportedly effective against strains related to the June outbreak in Beijing, which affected a wholesale food market in the city, as well as infections reported in July in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region. in the extreme west of China.
Sinovac said the latest human trial of its vaccine is underway in Brazil and Indonesia, with a view to launching the end of the year for the treatment. The Beijing-based pharmaceutical company said its vaccine serum could neutralize more than 20 strains of the virus, including those detected in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.
The company claims that it is not affiliated with any state program to develop a vaccine.
The Chinese military is also working to develop a vaccine, and a team from the PLA Academy of Military Sciences is conducting human trials.
CanSinoBio, a Tianjin-based private pharmaceutical company that partnered with the PLA in the joint effort, has said that some Chinese troops had been vaccinated as early as June.
Questions are already emerging about how Beijing will allocate its vaccines if it is proven safe and effective. China has already pledged vaccine donations to a dozen countries in Southeast Asia and Africa, as well as Hong Kong and Macao.
The Hong Kong government confirmed on Sunday that it had already obtained doses of vaccines from western and mainland China that would equal a third of its population of 7.5 million, with universal shipments and injections expected at the earliest by the end of the year.
So far, Beijing has not given any guarantees on mass vaccination of the local population, despite state media announcing alleged progress in the development, testing and scheduled production of the treatment.
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