China vaccine available in October
CHINA could have a coronavirus vaccine available in October, and the Philippines and Brazil would be the first two countries to get doses, a Chinese expert said on Thursday.
The announcement was made as China National Biotec Group (CNBG) said that an inactivated Covid-19 vaccine production workshop of its affiliate, Beijing Institute of Biological Products, the first and largest of its kind in the world, has passed national examination.
The facility was granted a production certificate and it is now available for use, CNBG, an affiliate of the state-run China National Pharmaceutical Group, said in a statement sent to the GlobalTimes. The Beijing institute took only two months to finish building the facility.
CNBG said the facility could produce 220 million doses of vaccines a year.
The 220 million doses will be used to immunize medical staff and personnel working at airports and border checkpoints, Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccine researcher, said.
“It is possible that China could have a Covid-19 vaccine as early as the end of October as some domestically made Covid-19 vaccines have entered phase three clinical trials and need about a month to observe their effects on samples,” Tao said.
After securing a certain amount of vaccine for China’s strategic reserves, exports can be considered, Tao noted, adding that the Philippines and Brazil are potential destinations. Sinopharm is launching the fourth major Covid-19 vaccine trial in Brazil and will seek regulatory approval soon, Reuters reported on July 30.
The company’s candidate vaccine is being tested in the United Arab Emirates with 15,000 local volunteers, including UAE nationals and expatriates there.
In another major step, German firm BioNTech and its Chinese partner Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical announced on Wednesday that 72 trial participants have been dosed with BNT162b1, a Covid-19
vaccine candidate based on BioNTech’s mRNA technology, following the Chinese regulators’ examination and approval. The two firms are jointly developing the coronavirus vaccine candidate in China too.
Scientists from Hong Kong and Macau had also announced a breakthrough in the development of a recombinant Covid-19 vaccine, which can be mass-produced at a low cost in the future.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in late July that China had 13 firms that have begun capacity building for Covid-19 vaccines, and nine have been approved to start clinical trials.
Four of the nine firms are pushing for an inactivated vaccine technical route, three are focusing on nucleic acid vaccines, one is based on adenovirus vector vaccines and one has opted for recombinant protein vaccines, reports said.