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South China morning post
Coronavirus: China’s companies ‘ready to export 400 million doses of vaccines’
China’s drug makers have arrangements to supply nearly 400 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to other countries, as deployments begin around the world and governments scramble to access the jabs. Three leading Chinese companies – China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm), Sinovac Biotech and CanSino Biologics – have made those deals to supply countries in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, according to public data compiled by British analytics firm Airfinity and the Duke. Global Health Innovation Center in the United States. Beijing’s diplomatic promise that Chinese-made vaccines will be a “global public good” for developing countries. Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the great stories originating from China. Experts say political will and industry capacity mean that China could play an important role in improving the limited global supply of Covid-19 vaccines. But questions remain about the vaccine’s efficacy and data transparency, as well as how Beijing will balance its goals abroad with vaccinating its domestic population of 1.4 billion. In a briefing over the weekend, health officials said China had not yet approved any of its national programs. candidates for general use vaccines, but some candidates had collected enough data for interim analysis from their phase 3 trials and this was being submitted to regulators for review on an ongoing basis. Chinese vaccine developers seek approval before mass inoculations However, doses of vaccines developed in China have already started shipping worldwide, and countries that helped clinical trials for Chinese companies are among those with early access. Brazil and Indonesia have received shipments from Sinovac. candidate in recent weeks. Both countries are running phase 3 trials and have not yet approved the vaccine, the trial data for which is expected in a few days. This month, Egypt accepted its first batch of a Covid-19 vaccine developed under the state-owned company Sinopharm and shipped from the US. United Arab Emirates. , which conducted a clinical trial and approved the vaccine on December 9. Public vaccines have already been launched in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi, according to local media reports. Health authorities cited 86 percent effectiveness in an interim Phase 3 analysis, although the company has yet to release data. Another test site, Bahrain, also approved the vaccine. Other countries with dose agreements developed by Chinese companies include Mexico, Morocco, Chile, Indonesia, Singapore and Turkey. Indonesia leads in quantity, with 125.5 million doses of Sinovac, 60 million of Sinopharm and 20 million of CanSino. There may be other agreements that have not been made public. A lot is at stake for China in a deployment of its vaccines overseas, according to health security researcher Nicholas Thomas, who diplomatically marks China’s “difficult year” as he stated. with global scrutiny of his early handling of the outbreak, first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. “The successful deployment of its vaccines around the world will help ameliorate some of those tensions,” said Thomas, associate professor at City University of Hong Kong. “At the national level, vaccines help support the narrative that the government [making] a significant effort to alleviate the global disruption and distress caused by Covid-19 ”. But navigating between overseas commitments and domestic needs will be a “balancing act” that Beijing must manage well, according to Xiaoqing Boynton, vice president of Washington consulting firm Albright Stonebridge Group. “China does not currently have an active outbreak, so in terms of prioritization it has a national agenda, however, it is also dealing with very active hotspots globally, including locations that are of strategic importance to China,” Boynton said, who focuses on China’s health and life sciences sectors. In a briefing on Saturday, National Health Commission official Zheng Zhongwei said China had made “relevant arrangements in planning vaccine production capacity” to support access to vaccines abroad. Vaccines for the world’s vulnerable are no guarantee of a “ silver bullet ”: The commission said in September that China could produce 610 million doses this year and 1 billion next, but it is unclear whether a specific number of them it is intended for export. not providing those figures on the weekend. Zheng said the efficacy data would be released to the public “in time” after the trials were not blinded. This will be critical to understanding what role they could play in the global supply of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to John Donnelly, director of Vaccinology Consulting in the United States. “That data is really important. Until people have had a chance to review it, no one can really draw conclusions one way or another, “he said. Unlike the mRNA technology used in vaccines that Pfizer and Moderna gave emergency approval to in the US. By Pfizer and Moderna, Sinopharm and Sinovac are based on a virus platform, which is familiar to several manufacturers in developing countries. [those vaccines] they turn out to work well and be relatively simple to manufacture, so there is quite significant potential for local manufacturers … to acquire the capacity to produce them for their own region or country, ”said Donnelly, noting that this technology transfer could be key Boynton , of Albright Stonebridge Group, said that “transparency is the key” to increase the level of public trust and confidence in China’s vaccines, especially as China’s vaccine industry has faced safety scandals in recent years.But there has also been substantial investment from China to position itself as a contributor to Covid-19 vaccination internationally, he said. “This is a unique opportunity for the Chinese industry to demonstrate its qualifications, in terms of safety and quality standards, and become a trusted supplier of vaccines on a global scale,” Boynton said. Additional reports from Reuters More from the South China Morning Post: * Coronavirus: Ch a list for 100 million doses of BioNTech vaccine amid launch of injections abroad * Coronavirus: WHO gains access to nearly 2 billion doses of Several ‘promising’ vaccine candidates * China remains vigilant with travel warnings as tourism industry prepares for first post coronavirus Christmas season * Coronavirus: Donald Trump says US Modern Covid-19 vaccine ‘approved overwhelmingly ‘our mobile application. Copyright 2020.
