A Chinese pharmaceutical company has vaccinated millions of people against the experimental Covid 19 vaccine, as its Western counterparts warn against large-scale vaccine administration before rigorous scientific studies are completed.
China National Biotech Group Co., a
subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm, has given two
experimental vaccine candidates to hundreds of thousands of people under the
emergency use condition approved by Beijing in July. In addition, Chinese drug
company Sinovac Biotech Limited said it had vaccinated 3,000 of its employees,
including the firm's chief executive, and their family members with its
experimental coronavirus vaccine.
Three vaccine candidates are still
undergoing Phase 3 clinical trials, including testing the safety and
effectiveness of the vaccine on thousands of people. According to the World
Health Organization, six other well-known candidates for Cove 19 are also in
the final stages.
Regulators in individual countries usually
decide whether the wider public should be allowed’ to use the vaccine only
after the test has been completed. The United States, the United States, and
Germany, where some of the top candidates are in the running, have not yet
approved any vaccine for use outside of clinical trials.
Public health experts say frontline
medical workers should be given’ priority in any emergency use of unapproved
vaccines. The Chinese government approved in June an experimental vaccine for
military members to be developed’ by Ken Sino Biologics Inc., then in July allowed
other candidates for emergency use of the vaccine for medical workers and
border inspectors.
Nine Western pharmaceutical companies
promised in a joint statement this week that their experimental Covid 19
vaccines would not file for formal approval or approval until a formal medical
examination was completed.
In an opinion column published Thursday,
eight top US Food and Drug Administration officials said they would not allow
politics to influence their assessment of the COVID19 vaccine candidates, especially
after President Trump Called for the vaccine to be widely available.
Presidential elections on November 3.
AstraZeneca PLC of the United States,
which is preparing a key candidate, closed a series of clinical trials this
week aimed at enrolling 30,000 people after a woman developed an unknown
disease, according to a U.S. study. ۔ Cases may be reopened depending on the
results of an independent review of potential security concerns.
In contrast, China and Russia appear keen
to start using their climate vaccines, claiming to restart their economies and
win global public relations.
Last month, Russia claimed to be the first
country to approve the Covid 19 vaccine based on early-stage trials. Officials
there say they expect large-scale vaccinations to be launched’ by the end of
the year.
China, which says it has largely sealed
the new coronavirus in its territory, has also taken an aggressive approach to
the vaccine. Among the hundreds of thousands who have been vaccinated’ with the
amount of the experimental vaccine from CNBG, a subsidiary of Sinopharm is
China-based employees of Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Limited, based
in Hong Kong.
Phoenix Television said last week that it
had injected its employees under China's emergency use policy, but did not say
how many vaccines it had received.
Sinopharm chairman Liu Jingzhen suggested
in an interview with Phoenix Television that the drug maker would offer its
vaccine to more Chinese journalists, especially those working abroad.
"Everybody should have hope for this kind of vaccine, since the virus has
spread abroad," Mr. Liu said.
Zhou Song, a senior CNBG official, said on
the company's social media account that not a single person who had not been
vaccinated’ had been infected with the new coronavirus or experienced any
obvious adverse reactions. Mr. Zhou also said the company was not vaccinating
pregnant or breastfeeding women. The CNBG did not say whether it avoided
potential dangers if it told people about it.
Mr. Zhou said the injections given so far
had also shown the effectiveness of vaccines to Chinese workers working on
infrastructure projects abroad.
Although Chinese infrastructure workers
are not part of the company's regular clinical trials, Mr. Zhou said the
company had collected data in several countries, which showed that their
vaccine had kept them safe for months.
Liu Peicheng
spokesman
for Sinovac, which said it had injected 3,000 employees and their families,
said the company's recent vaccines were purely voluntary and had been used’
before clinical trials were completed. The risks of receiving the vaccine are
revealed’ to the recipients. He said the company had made the offer to its
employees because it believed they had a higher risk of infection.
"We are not here to show the public
the safety of the vaccine," Mr. Liu said of the emergency use.
China has promised to share any successful
vaccine with other countries, many of which have strategic interests in
Beijing, including the Philippines, Indonesia and Brazil. Sinovac has agreed to
provide 100,000 doses of free vaccine to Bangladesh.
The United States has said that any
successful vaccine will give priority to its citizens. It has already pledged
to buy vaccines manufactured in the United States and Germany.
The CNBG said it had received over 500
million food orders overseas, the largest among Chinese drug makers, although
it did not specify which countries had placed orders. The company is conducting
Phase 3 clinical trials in the UAE and Argentina.
The company's vaccine regimen may require
people to be vaccinated’ in two or three doses. CNBG said it would be able to
produce 100 million doses of its Covid 19 vaccine by the end of this year, and
up to one billion doses a year thereafter.
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