The World Health Organization (WHO) is about to announce whether to grant emergency use authorizations for three new crown vaccines from China, Kexin and Modena.
The purpose of this list is to create an accelerated pathway for vaccines to enter countries around the world, allowing for faster global rollout of listed vaccines; this list now includes Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
Sinopharm inactivated Neocrown vaccine is the first Neocrown vaccine to be introduced in China. Here’s a rundown of three basic questions you may want to know.
What are the characteristics?
There are two Sinopharm vaccines in China, developed by Sinopharm’s Institute of Biological Products in Beijing and Wuhan, with the Beijing Institute’s vaccine coming out first, and it is this one that the WHO is reviewing for approval.
This is the first vaccine approved for emergency use in China, the most widely available and inoculated vaccine in the country, and the most widely used Chinese vaccine approved worldwide.
The other Chinese vaccine, developed by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products of China, has been consistently shown to be slightly less effective than the first one.
Both Sinopharm vaccines are inactivated vaccines that require two doses and are routinely refrigerated at low temperatures.
Other Chinese vaccines currently include another Govt. vaccine, Kexin, Kangxino and Anhui Zhifei Longcoma vaccine.
Inactivated vaccines are a traditional technology and are well established.
According to official Communist Party media reports, 100 million doses of Sinopharm vaccines have been administered in China so far, and no cases of serious vaccine-related adverse reactions have been found.
Zhang Yuntao, chief scientist of Sinopharm China Biologics, said in an interview with China Central Radio and Television in spring 2021 that the new inactivated vaccine developed by the group’s Beijing and Wuhan biologics institutes “has a lower overall adverse reaction rate than inactivated vaccines for hepatitis A, EV71 hand, foot and mouth disease and influenza.
However, both Brazil and Peru have stopped vaccination with the national drug because of serious adverse reactions.
What is the efficacy?
It is difficult to make a simple comparison of the efficacy, effectiveness and benefits between different types of vaccines, involving the effects on mild, severe and serious illnesses requiring hospitalization, storage requirements, number of injections, common and rare side effects, cost, and so on.
Key WHO criteria for evaluating vaccines include effectiveness of at least 50%, and manufacturing compliance.
The WHO Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization Strategies said March 31 that data submitted by China National Pharmaceutical Group and Kexing on two new crown vaccines showed that their protective efficacy met WHO requirements and caused no harm to humans.
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) online edition, April 9, 2021, reported that the results of the clinical phase III trial of the Beijing State Drug vaccine had not been published in any peer-reviewed professional journal at the time of the deadline. The data now known are largely from the drug company and the countries where this vaccine is being used.
In December 2020, Sinopharm released a statement saying that interim clinical phase III data showed the vaccine to be 79% effective in preventing symptoms of neocon.
Results from trials in Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia showed immune efficacy ranging from 50.7% to 83.5%.
Approximately 30 countries have approved the use of the national vaccine, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Guyana, Hungary, and Serbia.
Hungary is the first European country to approve the national vaccine. The UAE is building a new vaccine production site in the capital Abu Dhabi in a joint venture with Sinopharm.
The majority of vaccinations in the UAE are GMP vaccines, and Serbia, Cambodia and Egypt all have larger orders for GMP vaccines.
Vaccine diplomacy?
WHO Director-General Desai Tan told the media in late March that the scarcity of vaccine supplies was fuelling “vaccine nationalism” and “vaccine diplomacy”. In response, WHO and partners are seeking to accelerate vaccine production and supply through a variety of channels.
One such channel is the approval of more vaccines for emergency use through rapid assessment. At the time, he mentioned China’s Sinopharm and Kexing vaccines.
Nicholas Thomas, associate professor of global public health security at City University of Hong Kong, mentioned in an interview with the South China Morning Post that a major challenge for China’s vaccine participation in the international vaccine sharing program COVAX is to meet the supply needs of COVAX while also producing enough vaccine to ensure universal vaccination in the country.
The Chinese government aims to vaccinate 40% of the population by the end of June 2021.
According to the official media People’s Daily, China has accumulated more than 200 million doses of various vaccines in the country, half of which are COVAX vaccines.
The newspaper also cited Sinopharm China Bio data, saying, “Since April, Sinopharm China Bio has achieved a monthly production capacity of 100 million doses of the new crown vaccine. As of April 6, the cumulative production of Sinopharm China Bio exceeded 200 million doses of the original New Crown vaccine and the production of dispensed New Crown vaccine exceeded 200 million doses.”
The vast majority of vaccinations in the UAE are with Sinocrown vaccine
COVAX’s goal is to deliver 2 billion doses of vaccine to the global giving ground by the end of 2021, including countries whose national capacity cannot afford to spend on vaccine procurement.
Vaccines supplied to COVAX, the global vaccine sharing program, must be on the WHO’s EUL list.
COVAX is currently facing a vaccine supply crunch, while vaccine capacity expansion is limited by raw material supply bottlenecks. Capacity and supply is one of the indicators used by WHO to assess whether a vaccine can be placed on the Emergency Use Authorization List (EUL).
Communist Party President Xi Jinping has pledged to provide $2 billion worth of vaccine aid to Africa and $1 billion in steering loans to Latin America for the procurement of new vaccine crowns, the exact terms and operational details of which are unclear.
Some analysts in Europe and the United States believe Beijing will seize the opportunity to trade life-saving technology for commercial and diplomatic gains.
Sinopharm has provided more than 220 million doses of vaccines overseas, with procurement terms varying by country and some unpublished, but The New York Times has revealed that Hungary pays $36 per dose of Sinopharm vaccine and Senegal, Africa, buys 200,000 doses at $19 per dose.
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