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The China National Biotec Group (CNBG) coronavirus vaccine candidate.
Photographer: Lintao Zhang / Getty Images
Photographer: Lintao Zhang / Getty Images
One of China’s top vaccine developers is working on a plan to inoculate students traveling abroad with Covid-19 vaccines that have yet to gain regulatory approval, according to people familiar with the matter, as the country pushes the scientific limits in the race for viable immunization. .
China National Biotec Group Co., or CNBG, a state-owned subsidiary Sinopharm Group Co., is in talks with the Chinese government about giving students heading abroad to study their experimental vaccines, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly. Various government agencies are still working on the plan and a final decision has not been made, the people said.
The two injections being developed by CNBG, which are still in the final third phase of testing, were authorized for emergency use in China and have already been administered to hundreds of thousands of people there, including medical workers and state employees. owned companies working in high risk countries. The students would represent an unprecedented expansion in the use of vaccines that have not completed full human testing, although the Chinese regulator may determine that the group may enter the realm of emergency use.
“In effect, this would extend the emergency use permit granted beyond its intent,” said Nigel McMillan, director of the program for immunology and infectious diseases at the Menzies Health Institute at Griffith University in Queensland. “Although it is obviously very important to the families and students involved, studying abroad is not an emergency, there are no lives in danger here.”
Read More: China Offers Vaccines to Overseas Workers Amid Vaccine Race
CNBG did not respond to multiple calls and text messages seeking comment, and the Chinese Ministry of Education did not respond to phone calls either.
Interest in vaccines
Students’ concern about leaving China, where the pathogen has almost been eradicated through aggressive containment measures, to foreign countries where the coronavirus is still spreading rapidly fueled discussions, the people said. Infections in the US and Europe are making a comeback, while outbreaks in South America and India show little sign of being under control.
CNBG appears to be trying to gauge the general public’s interest in its vaccine candidates, with a link on its website allowing people to request to receive a vaccine. He asked for personal information and which city they wanted to receive the injection. As of Tuesday morning, more than 154,000 people had registered in China, and a notice at the bottom of the registration form said that students traveling abroad could receive vaccines for free. Later in the day, the the web link seemed to stop working.
The registration exercise is for planning purposes and no actual vaccinations have been given to anyone who has registered yet, the people said.
Fast Track
Chinese vaccine developers have been at the forefront of the global race to create effective immunization against the virus, which has assumed vital importance as countries seek to move beyond Covid-19 and fully reopen their economies. Vaccine development processes that typically take years have been reduced to months in many places, encouraged by politicians who want a quick fix to the pandemic.
Western pioneers like Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca Plc have temporarily halted their trials in recent months after unexplained illnesses in participants. Sinopharm It said in September that it has seen no adverse reactions in trial subjects who have received its vaccines, which are in final testing in the Middle East and South America.
At a briefing last month, Zheng Zhongwei, an official with China’s National Health Commission, said it is not serious Adverse reactions have been reported for vaccines used in the emergency use program.
The drugs and vaccines that could end the coronavirus pandemic
Chinese media reported on Tuesday that students, among other groups, were allowed to book appointments for CNBG vaccines in the cities of Beijing and Wuhan.
Griffith’s McMillan said dosing of subjects who did not participate in the trial while testing is still ongoing carries risks. “I would suggest that this is not only unjustified but also unsafe,” he said.
– With the help of John Liu, Steven Yang and Claire Che
(Updates with quotes in the fourth and last paragraph)
