The Chinese drug regulator approved the country’s first coronavirus vaccine for general public use, a sign of confidence in the experimental shots the country plans to roll out within and beyond its borders.
The Chinese National Medical Products Administration has approved a Covid-19 vaccine that is being developed by state ownership China National Biotec Group Co., a unit of Sinopharm, officials told reporters in Beijing on Thursday.
With the approval, the vaccine – which has been approved for emergency use in China since mid-year, along with other front-runner shots – will be made commercially available, meaning it can be administered to the general population. Regulators from the US to Singapore have approved shots in the past month, including vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc, but these were largely for emergency use, a status that China granted to its developers months ago.
China will target members of the population at higher risk for its vaccinations, including the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, then roll out vaccines to the general public, said Zeng Yixin, deputy minister of the country’s National Health Commission. , at the briefing.
The country has already administered more than 4.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine, 3 million of which have been administered since mid-December alone, Zeng said. It is said to be so with the goal of vaccinating 50 million people against the virus in early February, ahead of the annual Lunar New Year holiday. The ratio of side effects, including allergies, is about two in 1 million, Zeng said Thursday.
Faces challenges
Following the briefing, state media, including People’s Daily newspaper, reported that the vaccine would be provided to Chinese citizens free of charge. Although Zeng stated the prospect that the recordings would be free, no specific details about the rollout were given.
“Vaccines are by nature a public good and the price will vary according to the scale of use,” Zeng said at the briefing. “But the broader premise is that it is offered for free to the entire population.”
The green light for wider use underscores China’s determination to be a major player in providing vaccinations to its own people and countries around the world. Still, the nation faces challenges in gaining the trust of millions of people who may need to rely on its vaccines.
China is struggling to make the world rely on its vaccines
Chinese developers have been slow compared to their Western peers in releasing clinical trial data, raises questions about transparency, effectiveness and safety as the world focuses on which vaccines will be most successful in the fight against the pandemic. Pfizer and Moderna, which developed advanced coronavirus vaccines using messenger RNA technology, submitted data to the FDA that is publicly available. AstraZeneca’s peer-reviewed results were published this month in The Lancet.
CNBG will publish detailed data on its recordings in recognized international medical journals, President Wu Yonglin said Thursday.
“We cannot simply compare whether Chinese vaccines are better or overseas,” said Zheng Zhongwei, an official with the National Health Commission. “Only by comprehensively evaluating the safety, efficacy, accessibility and affordability of each can we make a scientific assessment.”
Lack of trust
Conflicting interim data released by some companies has contributed to the lack of confidence in China’s vaccines. CNBG said on Wednesday that its shot is effective in preventing Covid-19 in 79.3% of people, less than the 86% previously reported from its UAE studies.
Rival domestic developer Sinovac Biotech Ltd. Meanwhile, has not yet produced definitive results on how effective his vaccine is, with trials in Brazil and Turkey suggesting the shot has a 90% protection rate on both sides. The company is still reconciling the results of independent Phase III studies conducted in Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia and Chile, a person familiar with the studies said last week.
The Pfizer and Moderna shots have yielded better results, with symptomatic Covid-19 cases reduced by more than 90% in giant studies. But the Chinese vaccines have the advantage of being easier to store and distribute because they don’t need to be frozen like the mRNA shots do, potentially making distribution to rural areas and developing countries easier.
Geopolitical influence
The general-purpose approval is unlikely to make much of a difference in China itself, as the country has largely eradicated local transmission of the virus through strict local lockdowns and massive testing. But it could be a game-changer for other countries dealing with uncontrollable outbreaks – such as Indonesia and Peru – that have deals on Chinese vaccines.
The vaccines could also help China gain geopolitical clout and restore an image tainted by criticism of its initial response to the virus and its role as the original epicenter. President Xi Jinping has vowed to share every successful vaccine abroad, and China has joined Covax, a World Health Organization-backed program aimed at ensuring a fair supply of working vaccines for both rich and poor countries.
China’s race ahead Covid-19 Vaccine raises safety questions
Chinese vaccines will be fairly and reasonably priced as a public good to the world, and the country is considering several ways to distribute shots to developing countries, including donations, said Shen Bo, a State Department official.
Beijing mobilized its regulators, research institutes and companies to come up with vaccines shortly after the new pathogen first came from the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. That gave the vaccine candidates a head start, and they were among the first in the world to start testing on humans.
Black market
But the Western colleagues were quicker to provide data on pivotal phase III studies. The near elimination of the pathogen in China caused delays for the domestic developers, who had to to rinse together to find test sites overseas where the pathogen is still spreading rapidly.
Despite the delays, more than a million Chinese people received shots under the emergency program – the definition of which was expanded to include primary care personnel, state personnel and students who had to travel abroad. Even government officials and business executives have had access to the recordings, raising fears that a black market developed.
China now has 14 vaccines in clinical trials, five of which are in the final phase of Phase III, Xu Nanping, deputy chief of the Ministry of Science and Technology, said during Thursday’s briefing.
– With help from John Liu, Claire Che, Kenneth Wong and Timothy Annett
(Updates with free vaccination reports starting in the sixth paragraph)