Chinese-made vaccines come to the rescue

Sinopharm and Sinovac to play a vital role in developing nations

Health experts say that an increased global reliance on Chinese Covid-19 vaccines cannot come soon enough, as other vaccines contend with delays in development and exportation.

Vaccines from Chinese pharmaceutical companies Sinopharm and Sinovac are about to play an increasingly vital role in the developing world, now that AstraZeneca exports from India have halted and US biotechnology company Novavax has indicated that it is once again delaying regulatory submissions for approval of its vaccine.

The World Health Organisation recently listed the Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use, giving it the green light to be rolled out globally under the Covax programme, which distributes vaccines to developing nations.

“It’s a very significant development, because with Covax, they were very reliant in the first quarter of this year on the AstraZeneca vaccine,” Caroline Casey, lead Covid-19 analyst at science analytics company Airfinity, said.

“And about 64% of that supply in the first half of this year was meant to come from India, which has currently got an export ban because of the situation there where they need to reserve as many vaccines as they can to protect their own population. So that leaves quite a big hole in Covax’s portfolio.”

Covax had hoped to distribute 252 million vaccines in the first half of this year, but so far just 60 million doses have been delivered, according to Airfinity.

Covax was relying on 94% of its supply being AstraZeneca vaccines, about two-thirds of which were supposed to be supplied by India, with the rest coming from South Korea.

Pfizer has agreed to supply 6%, or 15 million, of Covax vaccines in the first half of this year, though only 1.1 million of the Pfizer doses have been delivered to date.

The Sinopharm approval presents a potential lifeline to the beleaguered initiative.

Meanwhile, the WHO is reviewing the Sinovac vaccine, whose authorisation would further bolster Covax, according to Casey.

The combined annual capacity of the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines is expected to reach three billion doses this year.

“So, it’s a different picture than we have seen with a lot of the Western candidates, who have said we will produce one billion next year, and then the numbers come down, whereas with China, we have seen them quite consistently go up,” Casey said.

“Sinovac could have quite a big impact because it can be stored closer to room temperature, so you can use it in remote regions of the world quite easily,” she added.

The Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored at ultralow temperatures, and Covax has only granted approval for distribution of Pfizer in 18 countries. Covax rejected several countries’ applications for that vaccine because they do not have the necessary cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the treatments. — China Daily/ANN