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China is the only major economy in the world not to approve or distribute COVID-19 vaccines that use mRNA technology which has proven to be one of the most effective tools to prevent the spread of COVID -19. But China’s stance on mRNA could change.
Chinese media outlet Caixin reported on Thursday that Chinese regulators have completed a review of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by German mRNA vaccine maker BioNTech and distributed locally through Chinese company Fosun Pharma. Fosun is still awaiting final approval from regulators, but, once approved, Fosun could roll out the 100 million doses acquired from BioNTech last December in the Chinese market by the end of 2021.
The approval would also unlock Fosun’s ability to produce an additional 1 billion BioNTech shots nationwide per year, as part of the agreement between Fosun and BioNTech in May to create a new joint venture in China.
The expected approval is slow in coming.
Fosun has been seeking approval for the BioNTech vaccine in the Chinese market since at least last November, when BioNTech and its other global distributor Pfizer first announced clinical data showing that the mRNA vaccine was effective against COVID-19. The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine has since gained approval from the World Health Organization and has been shown to be highly effective, including against the Delta variant, in stopping outbreaks and preventing COVID-19-related deaths under conditions real.
China’s delayed approval of the BioNTech jab is likely due, in part, to the government publicly questioning the usefulness of mRNA vaccines earlier this year and promoting its in-house alternatives.
But the recent rise in the COVID-19 Delta variant could push Beijing to change course. Amid the COVID-19 outbreaks caused by Delta, foreign governments appear to be losing some confidence in the performance of Chinese vaccines compared to mRNA vaccines from companies like BioNTech and Moderna. And Beijing could come to the idea that an mRNA vaccine could bolster its own response to the pandemic and facilitate the long-awaited reopening of its borders.
China and mRNA
China’s resistance to mRNA technology became apparent earlier this year, when state media attempted to cast doubt on mRNA injections from companies like Pfizer as a way to promote the clichés produced. in China.
January 15, World time, a nationalist tabloid, lambasted Western media for critical coverage of the Chinese coup and hinted that relying on new mRNA vaccines was dangerous.
“This large-scale promotion of Pfizer’s vaccine is an ongoing process of large-scale testing in humans,” said the World time wrote.
A few days later, the People’s Daily, the state-owned spokesperson for the Communist Party of China, followed by a story that promoted an unproven link between deaths in Norwegian nursing homes and the Pfizer shooting.
Nicholas Thomas, professor of health security at the City University of Hong Kong, said skepticism about Pfizer’s injections had spread to the Chinese public and “consistently negative opinions” about the vaccines in China. MRNAs have proliferated on China’s tightly controlled social media platforms.
“China’s domestic vaccine narrative has been geared exclusively towards inactivated types of viruses” as a way to promote local vaccines, Thomas says.
Instead of mRNA, the main Chinese vaccine manufacturers, namely state-owned Sinopharm and private company Sinovac, rely on inactivated vaccine technology. These vaccines introduce a killed or inactivated form of COVID-19 into the body’s immune system, and China has bet that using the century-old approach will create fewer regulatory and production problems than newer methods.
But China’s official line regarding mRNA vaccines has eased since January.
“Everyone should consider the benefits mRNA vaccines can bring to mankind,” Gao Fu, director general of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a speech in April.
But Gao’s comments did not mark a complete reversal of China’s stance on mRNA vaccines, notes Yanzhong Huang, senior global health researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“We haven’t seen any major efforts to promote mRNA vaccines in China,” Huang said. “There is a political concern that if China approves mRNA vaccines, it could send a signal that causes people to question the effectiveness of existing vaccines. [Chinese] vaccines. “
China may be trying to find some kind of common ground on the issue.
Caixin reports that authorities plan to use BioNTech injections not as an alternative to its domestically produced injections, but rather as optional booster injections after people are given a two-dose regimen of Chinese vaccines. Thomas says the move may be the best way for China to avoid undermining confidence in its existing vaccination campaign while improving the immunity of its people.
“[BioNTech booster shots] would combine with, and thus validate, the existing vaccine regimen in China, ”said Thomas.
China could also possibly add injections of mRNA from domestic producers.
Walvax Biotechnology, a private vaccine manufacturer based in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, has the leading mRNA vaccine candidate in China and is awaiting approval to begin the final Phase III trials.
“I think China really needs to have its own mRNA vaccine,” said Dr Tong Xin, director of research development at Walvax. “This vaccine technology has proven to be effective … I really hope it will be launched in China.”
Loss of trustworthy
For its existing vaccines, China relies heavily on the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, which were recently approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization.
But even with WHO support, governments around the world appear to be losing faith in the jabs as questions arise about the effectiveness of Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines, especially against the more transmissible Delta variant.
In Thailand, authorities announced Monday that people who received a dose of Sinovac would receive the AstraZeneca vaccine as a second dose and that fully vaccinated health workers would be offered a booster of Pfizer or AstraZeneca. The move came after Thailand reported 618 COVID-19 infections and one death among 677,000 medical workers fully vaccinated with the two-dose regimen of Sinovac.
Indonesia’s health minister also recently hinted that the country would reduce its reliance on Sinovac gunfire amid reports that hundreds of healthcare workers had contracted COVID and 10 had died of the disease after receiving drugs. Sinovac injections.
The United Arab Emirates recommends that people receiving Sinopharm injections receive a booster injection of Pfizer six months after completing their Sinopharm regimen.
Ashley St. John, an immunologist at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, says all available evidence points to Sinovac and Sinopharm jabs preventing infections and saving lives, even with the rise of newer variants.
Sinovac and Sinopharm have not released data on the performance of their COVID vaccines against new variants. Scientific studies conducted before the emergence of the Delta variant showed that Sinovac and Sinopharm jabs were 50% and 79% effective, respectively, in preventing COVID-19 infections. The BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, meanwhile, was 95% effective against COVID-19 in clinical trials and is likely to be at least 64% effective against the Delta variant.
St. John says there is no reason countries should stop using Sinovac or Sinopharm jabs unless they have a better option.
“There will be people who have survived COVID because they have [Sinovac and Sinopharm] vaccines, ”she says. “But some countries have other options that they consider to be better… mRNA vaccines work better, so it makes sense to endorse them.”
Closed borders
China may also have to accept mRNA injections to reopen its borders.
Relying largely on Sinovac and Sinopharm, China has distributed more than 1.4 billion doses of vaccines to its citizens, enough to fully cover more than half of its population. But even with China’s rapid vaccination pace, the country may not reopen its borders until mid-2022, in part due to fears that the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines may be effective in preventing deaths, but limited in their extent. ability to prevent the transmission of the virus, the Wall Street newspaper reports.
China’s borders are still closed to most foreigners, and Beijing continues to adhere to a strict zero COVID strategy to eradicate even small outbreaks. After a COVID-19 outbreak infected dozens of people in the southern city of Guangzhou in June, for example, authorities locked down large parts of the city, sent thousands to quarantine, and tested millions of people. people for COVID-19.
“If China still sticks to this approach based on containment [to COVID-19], this means that its priorities are infection prevention. There are signs that the inactivated vaccines from Sinovac and Sinopharm are not very effective in achieving this goal, ”said Huang.
If China does not adopt mRNA vaccines, it could be left behind by countries that do.
“What is clear now is that [mRNA] technology works and is superior to current Chinese [inactivated] approach, ”says Thomas. “The Chinese government must undo its own stance on mRNA vaccines if it is to offer better protection to the community as it opens up.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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