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BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) – China said it has already administered more than a million coronavirus vaccines since July and plans to distribute more, initially targeting workers in industries where they are at higher risk of infection, as the country seeks to be at the forefront. of the global Covid-19 immunization effort.
Vaccines developed by Sinovac Biotech and China’s state-owned group National Biotec, known as CNBG, have been dispensed in the country since they were granted emergency use authorization in July.
China is now planning a wider distribution of the experimental injections to those working in hospitals, customs, public transportation and cold chain logistics, as well as vulnerable groups, including people with pre-existing medical conditions, to receive them first. A later phase of the deployment will involve the general public, Zeng Yixin, vice minister of China’s National Health Commission, told reporters in Beijing on Saturday (December 19).
Zeng said colder weather with the onset of winter poses challenges for China’s control of the virus, which it has virtually wiped out internally with a combination of strict border controls and massive testing.
“Our goal is to establish herd immunity through inoculations so that Covid-19 can be controlled effectively and quickly,” he said.
Two shots
The vaccine tally places China well ahead of the US and UK, which only recently granted emergency clearance to vaccines developed by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, allowing them to start vaccinating people in specific target groups. The United States also authorized a Covid-19 vaccine from Moderna on Friday. Russia, which says it is already administering local vaccines to its population, has vaccinated 320,000 people, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The one million figure refers to the doses administered, not the number of inoculates. CNBG President Yang Xiaoming recently said that more than 650,000 people had been vaccinated with Chinese vaccines, according to local media reports. Both the CNBG and Sinovac candidates follow a two-shot regimen of an initial hit and then a booster.
While Chinese officials did not disclose how many people will be vaccinated in the next phases of the inoculation effort, Bloomberg reported Friday that authorities plan to administer locally developed vaccines to up to 50 million workers considered at high risk of exposure. to the virus in early February, a significant expansion that will mobilize local branches of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, medical clinics and hospitals to achieve the ambitious goal.
Virus outbreaks
The launch, which comes amid speculation that China’s drug regulator is close to approving the CNBG and Sinovac vaccines for general use, would be roughly the equivalent of inoculating the entire population of South Korea in less than two months. , a move that would put the country ahead in the distribution race if successful.
The rapid rollout of coronavirus tests in China in recent months, with millions of people being tested for several days after the cases were identified, may be a model for how the nation of 1.4 billion people intends to address the rollout. of vaccines.
Plans to vaccinate 50 million people underscore Beijing’s focus on preventing a repeat of the deadly outbreak that began in the city of Wuhan earlier this year.
Although China has nearly eliminated local transmission of the virus and life has returned to normal for the vast majority of its population, some infections have emerged in recent weeks in the country’s northeast province of Heilongjiang, in Xinjiang in the west, and Sichuan. . , and even in the highly policed Chinese capital.
No serious side effects have been observed among those who have received the Chinese vaccines so far, Zheng Zhongwei, director who oversees the development of the coronavirus vaccine at the National Health Commission, said on Saturday. China will release data on the effectiveness of Chinese injections “on time”, and developers will submit updates to the drug regulator on an ongoing basis.
Less transparency
Compared to Western vaccine efforts, very little data on the efficacy and safety of late-stage human trials of Chinese vaccines has been released. Five of the candidate vaccines are in the late stage, and phase III clinical trials are underway in virus hot spots in Southeast Asia, South America and the Middle East.
The relative lack of transparency and information has fueled skepticism about the China shootings, which President Xi Jinping has said will be implemented globally. The country is also part of the World Health Organization’s Covax initiative, designed to distribute vaccines to the developing world.
Chinese vaccine developers also signed supply agreements with countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, which said earlier this month that the CNBG injection showed an 86 percent efficacy rate in a local clinical trial. of more than 30,000 people.
Research indicates that China’s vaccines provide protection against Covid-19 for at least six months, Zeng of the National Health Commission said at the briefing on Saturday. Antibodies continue to be detected in people who received injections since March, he said.
Defended approach
With the massive immunization effort underway, China’s CDC will leverage its existing monitoring systems to track serious side effects from Covid-19 vaccines, said Dr. Wang Huaqing, the agency’s leading immunization expert.
China’s mechanisms for monitoring vaccine safety meet WHO standards, and hospitals and clinics that will administer the injections across the country have the ability to identify and treat any side effects, he said.
Officials have previously said that there have been no serious adverse events – illnesses in people who receive a vaccine that can sometimes stop a clinical trial – among those inoculated under the emergency use program.
The country has defended its broad interpretation of the emergency clearance, which includes workers from state-owned companies heading abroad, saying the risk of Covid-19 returning across its borders remains high.
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