Sinovac steps up making vaccines Virus ‘war zone’, warns Korean min

Chinese company gets $500 mn investment, to produce 600 million doses by end of year

Taipei, Dec. 7: Chinese vaccine company Sinovac announced Monday that it is planning to complete a new facility to double its annual vaccine production capacity to 600 million doses by the end of the year, while also securing a $500 million investment in a boost to its Covid-19 vaccine development efforts.

The company is currently conducting the last stage of clinical trials for its vaccine candidate in Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia and is among the frontrunners of China' s vaccine efforts. China has at least five Covid-19 vaccine candidates running late stage clinical trials across more than a dozen countries. Sino Biopharmaceutical Ltd., a pharmaceutical conglomerate, bought a 15 per cent stake in Sinovac for an investment of $500 million. The funds will allow the company to “improve our vaccine sales capabilities, expand in Asia markets, develop and access new technologies, and most importantly, accelerate our efforts to help combat the global pandemic,” Sinovac CEO Yin Weidong said in a statement. On Sunday, 1.2 million doses of its experimental vaccine arrived in Indonesia and are expected to be approved for use soon. Sinovac's candidate is a two-dose inactivated vaccine, an old-school technology in which a live virus is killed and then purified. It can be stored at 2 to 8C (36 to 46 F), within the range of a normal refrigerator, unlike some other vaccines candidates that require far lower temperatures. Sinovac's experimental vaccine is currently approved for emergency use in China, although it has not yet obtained final market approval.

Under emergency use, it has been distributed to groups the Chinese government deemed suitable, including front-line medical workers and border personnel. The latest public data from the company, published in the science journal Lancet, showed its

Seoul, Dec. 7: South Korea’s health minister said Monday that the Seoul metropolitan area is now a “Covid-19 war zone,” as the country reported another 615 new infections and the virus appeared to be spreading faster.

The president, meanwhile, issued a call to expand testing and contact tracing. The country has recorded more than 5,300 new infections in the past 10 days and Monday was the 30th day in a row of triple-digit daily jumps. Most cases have come from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where half of South Korea's 51 million people live. With people increasingly venturing out in public and spending longer hours indoors amid cold temperatures, health workers have struggled to stem transmissions tied to restaurants, saunas, schools, hospitals and long-term care facilities.

“The capital area is now a Covid-19 war zone,” health minister Park Neung-hoo said, asking for vigilance. He said the country may have to increase social distancing to prevent the resurgence in the capital from “exploding into a major outbreak nationwide and collapsing health-care system.” Na Seong-woong, a senior official from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said the country could be reporting around 900 new infections a day next week if it fails to slow the spread. While Korea managed to contain a major outbreak in spring, it's less clear where the reinforcements will come if the virus wreaks havoc in the Seoul area.