Chinese vaccines are ready to fill the gap, but will they work?

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – As rich countries cut off supplies of the COVID-19 vaccine, some parts of the world will have to rely on Chinese developed scenarios to try to overcome the outbreak. Question: Will they work?

There is no external reason to believe that they will not do so, but China has a history of vaccine abuse, and its drug makers have already revealed about their final human trials and more than 1 million emergency use vaccines in the country.

Of the $ 12 billion expected to be produced next year, $ 9 billion is largely set aside by rich countries, while a global effort to ensure equal access to the COVAX, COVID-19 vaccine, Decreased Its promised capacity is 2 billion units.

For countries that have not yet been vaccinated, China may be the only solution.

China has six candidates in the final stages of testing, and it is one of the few countries that can produce a large number of vaccines. Government officials have announced a 1 billion dose capacity next year, with President Xi Jinping vowing that China’s vaccines will be a boon to the world.

The possibility of its vaccine being used by millions of people in other countries gives China an opportunity to repair the damage done to its reputation by an explosion that escaped from its borders and to show the world that it can be a great scientist.

Past scandals have damaged its own citizens’ confidence in its vaccines, raising doubts about whether production and supply chain problems can really be a savior.

“There is a question mark over how China can ensure that it provides reliable vaccines,” said Joy Zhang, a professor of emerging science ethics at the University of Kent in the UK. He cited China’s “transparency of scientific data and a complex history in vaccine distribution.”

Last week, Bahrain became the second country in the United Arab Emirates to approve the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine. Morocco plans to use Chinese vaccines in a mass immunization campaign starting this month. Chinese vaccines are awaiting approval in Turkey, Indonesia and Brazil, while testing continues in a dozen countries, including Russia, Egypt and Mexico.

In some countries, Chinese vaccines are viewed with suspicion. Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro has repeatedly raised doubts about the effectiveness of the Chinese company Sinovak’s vaccine candidate without citing any evidence, and said he would not use Brazilians as “guinea pigs”.

Many experts appreciate China’s vaccine capabilities.

Jamie Trikas, head of immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Sydney School of Medicine, commented on the results of clinical trials published in scientific journals: “Studies are well done. “I don’t care too much about that.”

China has been developing its own immunization programs for more than a decade. It has produced large-scale successful vaccines for its own population, including vaccines for measles and hepatitis, said Jin Dong-yan, a medical professor at Hong Kong University.

“There are no major outbreaks of these diseases in China,” he said. “That means vaccines are safe and effective.”

Over the past decade China has worked with the Gates Foundation and others to improve production quality. The World Health Organization has pre-certified five non-Govt-19 Chinese vaccines, which have been approved by the UN. Allows agencies to buy into other countries.

Leading developers of the COVID-19 vaccine include Sinovac and state-owned Sinoform.

Nevertheless, the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, a synopsis subsidiary behind one of the COVID-19 candidates, was caught in a vaccine scandal in 2018.

The city-based company, which first detected the corona virus last year, has produced hundreds of thousands of ineffective doses of the combined vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough due to equipment failure, government researchers said.

In the same year Changsheng Biotechnology Co. False information about the rabies vaccine.

In 2016, the Chinese media stockpiled and sold various vaccines for 2 million doses of children for years across the country.

The vaccination rate dropped after those scandals.

“All my local Chinese friends, they’s white collar, they’m fine, none of them buy drugs made in China, and so on,” said Ray Yip, Gates’ former director of the Foundation in China. No worries about buying Chinese made drugs.

China amended its laws in 2017 and 2019 to tighten vaccine storage management and increase inspections and penalties for faulty vaccines.

The country’s leading COVID-19 vaccine developers have published some scientific findings in co-reviewed scientific journals. But international experts questioned how China recruited volunteers and what kind of monitoring there is for potential side effects. Chinese companies and government officials did not release details.

Now, after the release of data on the effectiveness of Western-made vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna, experts are waiting to see the Chinese results. Regulators in the United Arab Emirates, where the synoform vaccine was tested, said it appeared to be 86% effective based on interim clinical trial data. On Thursday, the Turkish government announced that Sinovak would be 91.25% useful from interim data.

Sinoform did not respond to requests for comment on vaccine efficacy data. Another Chinese vaccine company, Sinovac, and Consino did not respond to interview requests.

For some of the countries that do not show signs of easing the infection, the country of origin of a vaccine is not a bar.

Daniel Alves Santos, a chef at the Rio de Janeiro restaurant, said, “I’d love to pick it up, come first, if it’s right. “I hope God will help.”