NZ in talks over several vaccines

WELLINGTON: Covid19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says New Zealand is in talks with several companies that are working to make a vaccine for Covid19 but will not confirm if work is under way to secure the latest one proven to be effective.

Moderna announced overnight yesterday its vaccine has been found to be 94.5% effective in preventing Covid19.

Mr Hipkins told RNZ there were ‘‘about 230 vaccine candidates under development . . . We’re monitoring them all and we’re in conversation with as many of them as we can be’’.

He said it was unlikely people would have to pay for a vaccine when one arrived — hopefully in the new year.

He would not confirm if New Zealand was in talks with

Moderna because there were ‘‘different degrees of commercial sensitivity’’ around those vaccine candidates.

But Mr Hipkins was confident that ‘‘when vaccines come to the market, we will be at the front of the queue for those’’.

Last week, it was reported the Government had bought several bulk freezers for storing a coronavirus vaccine after news one could be ready next year.

Pfizer and German partner

BioNTech SE are the first drug makers to release successful data from largescale clinical trials of a vaccine.

The Pfizer product is not a done deal but is the strongest contender so far.

‘‘Our strategy here is we are looking at a portfolio of vaccines, so there won’t be a single vaccine for New Zealanders.’’

He said it was likely the country would receive different vaccines over different timetables, and it was necessary to set up the technology to be able to distribute them.

‘‘The Pfizer vaccine requires a very very low temperature, 80C, in order to store it and to transport it.

‘‘Whereas this latest one [Moderna], you’re talking at a more regular vaccine temperature for storage and transport.

‘‘We’re making sure we’ve got the trucks and the refrigerators and all the gear ready to go for all the different potential vaccines, so . . . when they start arriving, we can start getting them out quickly.’’

Mr Hipkins did not give a set budget for the vaccines and the infrastructure to store and transport them, instead saying ‘‘whatever we need to’’.

He said logistics were still being worked through.

‘‘There will be an element of science involved here as well,’’ Hipkins said.

Hipkins said it was a commercially sensitive matter until a deal was signed.

‘‘So who is the vaccine most effective with? Are there any population groups that are more at risk from a vaccine than others?

‘‘And again, that’s going to depend on the individual vaccine.’’

National’s health spokesman says said the Government should be transparent about who it was talking to about Covid vaccines.

Dr Shane Reti said talking about those relationships was a reasonable expectation.

‘‘I think we should be expressing that we have a relationship and that we have some hope we’ll be part of their procurement package. I think that’s very reasonable,’’ he said.

There were four new cases of Covid19 in New Zealand yesterday, all detected in recent returnees in managed isolation. — RNZ

WELLINGTON: Authorities have told the Government there is no evidence New Zealand beef exports were the source of Covid19 in a Chinese cool store.

Officials here are now exploring whether products imported from overseas need to be tested for traces of the deadly virus.

Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said yesterday morning he had received an update from officials in China that no New Zealand meat was directly implicated as the source of the positive test results.

Reuters reported yesterday the Chinese city of Jinan said over the weekend it had found coronavirus on beef and tripe and their packaging from Brazil, Bolivia and New Zealand, while two other provincial capitals detected it on packaging on pork from Argentina.

The products reportedly entered through ports in Shanghai and more than 7500 people who may have been exposed tested negative for coronavirus.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday the Government had not spoken to Chinese authorities but were working to get to the bottom of it.

Mr O’Connor said he had been updated yesterday morning that there was still no evidence New Zealand meat was the source of the positive test results — but it had been stored with products from Latin America.

‘‘No links to us.’’

He did not think the reporting would have an adverse effect on the perception of New Zealand products in international markets.

In the year to September, New Zealand exported $3.17 billion of meat and offal to China, making it the country’s largest meat export market, according to Statistics New Zealand.

‘‘I think we’ve been very upfront with all our trading partners. They understand our Covid situation,’’ Mr O’Connor said.

‘‘Clearly we’re continuing to trade goods but with goods from elsewhere in the world there’s a high likelihood that they might get contaminated.’’

Mr O’Connor said he was taking the reporting at face value and there was nothing to indicate it was China retaliating against something the New Zealand Government had done.

He said New Zealand could not control other countries’ importing procedures, so our exports would continue to be mixed with those from other countries where the pandemic was rampant.

The Government was looking into whether goods imported to New Zealand needed to be swabbed for Covid19.

Early investigations suggested the likelihood of traces of the virus being transferred from frozen goods was ‘‘very, very low’’, he said.

‘‘But you can probably find traces of DNA material if you really looked from countries where it’s rampant.’’

The World Health Organisation advises there is no evidence that food or the food chain can transmit the virus.

‘‘People should not fear food, or food packaging or processing or delivery of food,’’ WHO’s head of emergencies programme Mike Ryan told a briefing in Geneva.

‘‘I would hate to think that we would create an impression that there’s a problem with our food or there’s a problem with our food chains.’’

WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said China had tested hundreds of thousands of packages and ‘‘found very, very few, less than 10’’ were positive for Covid19. — The New Zealand Herald