by Guest Fri Sep 11, 2020 11:59 pm
China has taken a shortcut in the global sprint to develop and deliver vaccines for the novel coronavirus. Sinopharm, the state-owned company developing two of China’s leading vaccine candidates, told China National Radio on Monday that it has already vaccinated hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens — even though the company’s phase 3 clinical trials have not yet concluded.
Individuals received one of two Sinopharm vaccines in development in an emergency use program launched by the Chinese government in late July, which also authorized a third vaccine, CoronaVac, developed by the privately owned drugmaker Sinovac Biotech. Under Chinese vaccine law, such authorization is allowed within a certain scope and time frame during a health emergency. China’s top vaccine official mentioned front-line medical workers and customs officials when he first announced the program, implying these high-risk groups had been prioritized to receive the still-experimental vaccines.
Phase 3 clinical trials, which look at the efficacy of a vaccine candidate at preventing a virus from spreading in a community, for the three Chinese vaccines had just begun overseas when they were approved for emergency use domestically. In July, Sinopharm initiated phase 3 trials for its two vaccine candidates in the United Arab Emirates; one of the vaccines also began trials in Morocco and Peru in August, according to the New York Times vaccine tracker. Sinovac launched CoronaVac’s phase 3 trials in July in Brazil, followed by Indonesia the following month. (The trials are being conducted outside of China because the vaccines’ protectiveness can be better evaluated in regions where Covid-19 transmission is high.)
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/9/11/21431416/coronavirus-vaccine-china-sinopharm-sinovac-emergency-authorization?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=entry&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&__twitter_impression=true