South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Gripes mount against China’s vaccine efforts
China’s coronavirus vaccines were supposed to deliver a geopolitical win that showcased the country’s scientific prowess and generosity. Instead, in some places, they have set off a backlash.
Officials in Brazil and Turkey have complained that Chinese companies have been slow to ship the doses and ingredients. Disclosures about the Chinese vaccines has been slow and spotty. The few announcements that have trickled out suggest that China’s vaccines, while considered effective, cannot stop the virus as well as those developed by Pfizer and Moderna, the American drugmakers.
In the Philippines, some lawmakers have criticized the government’s decision to purchase a vaccine made by a Chinese company called Sinovac. Officials in Malaysia and Singapore, which both ordered doses from Sinovac, have had to reassure their citizens that they would approve a vaccine only if it has been proven safe and effective.
“Right now, I would not take any Chinese vaccine because there’s insufficient data,” said Bilahari Kausikan, a former official at Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He added that he would consider it only with “a proper report.”
At least 24 countries, most of them low and middle income, signed deals with the Chinese vaccine companies because they offered access at a time when richer nations had claimed most of the doses made by Pfizer and Moderna. But the delays in getting the Chinese vaccines and the fact that the vaccines are less effective mean that those countries may take longer to vanquish the virus.
Beijing officials who had hoped the vaccines would burnish China’s global reputation are now on the defensive.
State media, meanwhile, has started a misinformation campaign against the other vaccines, questioning the safety of the Pfizer and Moderna shots and promoting the Chinese vaccines as a better alternative. They have also distributed online videos that have been shared by the anti-vaccine movement in the United States.
Liu Xin, an anchor with CGTN, the state broadcaster, asked on Twitter why the foreign media has failed to “follow up” on the deaths of people in Germany who have taken one vaccine — though scientists have said the people were already seriously ill. Liu’s tweet was shared by Zhao Lijian, a top spokesman at China’s foreign ministry.
George Gao, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has questioned the safety of the U.S. vaccines because their developers used new techniques rather than the traditional method embraced by Chinese makers.
China had hoped its vaccines would prove it had become a scientific and diplomatic powerhouse. It remains on par with the United States in the number of vaccines approved for emergency use or in late-stage trials. Sinopharm, a state-owned vaccine-maker, and Sinovac have said they can produce up to a combined 2 billion doses this year, making them essential to the global fight against the coronavirus.
Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, their doses can be kept at refrigerated temperatures and are more easily transported, making them appealing to the developing world. They have been doled out as aid to countries like Pakistan and the Philippines.
China’s campaign has been plagued with doubts, however. The delays in shipments to places like Brazil and Turkey have been the latest hitch.
In Turkey, the government initially promised that 10 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine would arrive in December. Only 3 million did in early January, according to Fahrettin Koca, Turkey’s health minister. The remaining doses finally arrived Monday, according to Anadolu, Turkey’s staterun news agency.
In a statement, China’s foreign ministry cited its needs at home, where the coronavirus has reemerged.
“C u r re n t l y, C h i n a ’s domestic vaccine demand is huge,” it said. “While meeting domestic demand, we are overcoming difficulties, thinking and trying ways to develop international vaccine cooperation with other countries, especially developing countries in different ways, and providing support and assistance according to their needs and within our capacity.”
The sporadic outbreaks could also hinder production. Sinova c, which declined to comment, said online Friday that it was looking for workers for a Beijing-area facility where an outbreak had frightened off potential employees.
Countries like Turkey and Brazil are rolling out their immunization programs with a Sinovac vaccine because Western companies cannot deliver as quickly. But Brazil’s efforts have been delayed as well. Eduardo Pazuello, the country’s health minister, said China is not acting fast enough with the documents needed to export raw materials to Brazil.
Other vaccines are beginning to fill the gap.
Brazil’s health ministry said last week that a delayed shipment of 2 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine would arrive soon from India.
The world was also caught off guard by the disclosure that the Sinovac vaccine may not be as effective as previously thought. Earlier, officials in Turkey said trials there showed the vaccine has a 91% efficacy rate. In Indonesia, it was 68%. In Brazil, researchers initially said its efficacy was 78%.
Then, Jan. 12, scientists said it had an efficacy rate of just over 50%, once people who experienced mild symptoms were included. That level is a hair above the threshold set by the World Health Organization to consider a vaccine effective.
In a news conference last week, Sinovac CEO Yin Weidong reiterated that the vaccine is 100% effective in preventing severe cases. He said the lower efficacy rate was because the trial was focused on health care workers, who had a higher propensity of contracting COVID-19 than the general population.
In Hong Kong, a special administration region of China that has ordered 7.5 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine, officials have not received an application for emergency distribution nor any data from the Chinese company.
“Whether it is because they are not making enough or if they have no plans to send the vaccines to Hong Kong yet, I don’t know,” said Dr. Lau Chak Sing, who heads a Hong Kong government advisory panel on COVID-19 vaccines.
Data disclosure has also been an issue in the Philippines, which has secured 25 million Sinovac vaccine doses.
Risa Hontiveros, an opposition lawmaker, said President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration “continues to cram their preference for Chinese-made vaccines down the public’s throat, without emergency use approval and with inconsistent data.”