Win for China’s vax diplomacy
WHO approves jab for emergency use as country struggles to meet its own needs
Developing countries racing for coronavirus vaccines now have another dependable option — and China’s reputation as a rising scientific superpower just got a big boost.
The World Health Organisation yesterday declared a vaccine made by Chinese company Sinopharm, a safe and reliable way to fight the virus. The declaration marks a significant step toward clearing up doubts about the vaccine, after little late-phase clinical trial data was disclosed by the Chinese Government and the company.
The WHO emergency use approval allows the Sinopharm vaccine to be included in Covax, a global initiative to provide free vaccines to poor countries. The possibility raises hopes that more people — especially those in developing nations — will get access to shots at a crucial moment.
Rich countries are hoarding doses of vaccines. India, a major vaccine maker, has stopped exports to address its worsening crisis. Safety concerns led health authorities in some countries to temporarily pause the use of vaccines made by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
“The addition of this vaccine has the potential to rapidly accelerate Covid-19 vaccine access for countries seeking to protect health workers and populations at risk,” Dr Mariangela Simao, WHO Assistant-Director General for Access to Health Products, said in a statement.
Vaccine access could improve further next week when the WHO considers another Chinese shot by a company called Sinovac. But the fanfare may be short-lived. While China has claimed it can make up to 5 billion doses by the end of this year, Chinese officials say it is struggling to manufacture enough doses for its own population and caution a pandemic-weary world to check expectations.
“This should be the golden time for China to practise its vaccine diplomacy. The problem is, at the same time, China itself is facing a shortage,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “So in terms of global access to vaccines, I don’t expect the situation to significantly improve in the coming two to three months.”
China’s vaccination campaign got off to a slow start, in part because the Government prioritised exports and residents did not feel rushed to get vaccinated.
The country is now speeding up its national campaign and aims to inoculate 40 per cent of its 1.4 billion people by July.
Sinopharm and Sinovac are producing about 12 million doses a day, just a little more than the 10 million doses that China hopes to administer daily to meet the domestic target. The companies would have to produce roughly 500 million additional doses
to meet the demands of other countries, based on data provided by Bridge Consulting, a Beijing-based consultancy focused on China’s impact on global health.
The vaccine shortage in China underscores the complexity of rolling out a mass vaccination campaign for the world’s most populous nation while also trying to execute an ambitious export programme. Companies involved in the vaccine supply chain, such as those making syringes, are working overtime.
“The whole world is short of this vaccine,” said Sinovac’s Pearson Liu. “The demand is just too great.”
To mitigate the shortfall, Chinese officials said those getting vaccinated could delay their second shot by as long as eight weeks, or combine the same type of vaccine from different companies. They have said the shortage should ease by June.
Andrea Taylor, who analyses global data on vaccines at the Duke Global Health Institute, called the potential addition of two Chinese vaccines into the Covax programme a “game-changer”.
“The situation right now is just so desperate for low and lower-middle income countries that any doses we can get out are worth mobilising,” Taylor said. “Having potentially two options coming from China could really change the landscape of what’s possible over the next few months.”
China’s vaccines have been rolled out to more than 80 countries but have faced significant scepticism, in part because the companies have not released phase-three clinical trial data for scientists to independently assess the vaccines’ efficacy rates. An advisory group to the WHO published the data this week.
The Sinopharm vaccine, developed with the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, has an efficacy rate of 78.1 per cent, according to the WHO advisory group.
The Sinovac vaccine has efficacy rates between 50 to 84 per cent, depending on the country where phase-three trials were conducted. Both were made using a tried-and
tested technology involving weakening or killing a virus with chemicals.
For China’s leaders, the WHO approval can be seen as a badge of honour. Premier Xi Jinping has pledged to make a Covid-19 vaccine a “global public good”.
After India announced export restrictions on vaccines last month, Indonesia and the Philippines said they would turn to China for help. Last week, China’s foreign minister offered to help South Asian nations get access to vaccines.
Indonesia said it would get additional doses from Sinovac after President Joko Widodo held talks with Xi. In a speech the same week, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines said he owed “a debt of gratitude” to China for its vaccines.
It remains to be seen whether the WHO approval will change Beijing’s approach to doling out vaccines. China has given only 10 million doses to Covax, although it has independently donated 16.5 million doses and sold 691 million doses to 84 countries, according to Bridge Consulting. Many of the donations were made to developing nations in Africa and Asia.
“They don’t like to subsume their generosity in their products under some UN brand,” said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the global health policy centre at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “They are in a historic phase. They want the recipients to know that this is China delivering.”