China accelerates its race for the vaccine | Society

Ma Lijun, 29, and the rest of the butchers in the Niu Jie market, the Muslim quarter of Beijing, got the notice from the facility managers. After the covid outbreak that the Chinese capital had suffered in June, which originated from another food market, all traders at the stalls had to be vaccinated. Being in contact with food and delivery men, they were considered workers in risk sectors.

“They summoned all the merchants in the market. I received two injections, free. I didn’t feel any side effects. I had to monitor the temperature and notify me if I noticed any kind of discomfort or discomfort. They told me that if I did not feel well, I would have to go to the doctor immediately. But nothing happened to me. Neither of the companions, they are all perfectly fine and none of them have had a fever. Neither do any other special symptoms, ”says this hui butcher (a Chinese minority of Muslim religion). He did not have, he assures, any apprehension before being vaccinated, nor did it cross his mind to reject the medicine.

Like Ma, more than a million people – risk workers, students enrolled abroad – have already received one of the vaccines that this country develops in China since three of them (two from the pharmaceutical company Sinopharm and one from Sinovac) received authorization for emergency use last summer. Although Beijing has not yet released the results of the third phases of the respective tests, it is accelerating its distribution and plans to strengthen supply, both within its territory and to other countries.

The Government of the United Arab Emirates this week gave a great boost to one of these vaccines, the Sinopharm formula that is being tested in its country and nine others, reports Angeles Espinosa. He stated that this vaccine has shown in the third phase, according to provisional results, an effectiveness of 86% among a sample of 30,000 volunteers. For its part, Coronavac – the Sinovac vaccine – has achieved in its phase I and II tests that 90% of 700 volunteers produced antibodies after the administration of two doses, although at lower levels than the covid patients who managed to recover, according to a report published in The Lancet in October.

The three experimental vaccines, which are tested abroad because there are not enough cases in China anymore, use the traditional method: inoculation of inactivated virus remains so that the human body recognizes the threat and learns to make specific antibodies against it. Both Sinopharm and Sinovac say they have not detected any significant side effects among those vaccinated.

Although the real percentage of effectiveness of any of these three formulas is unknown, or if they generate secondary effects, the Chinese Government has enough confidence in them to accelerate the final phase of development and distribution, and ensures that before the end of the year it will have 600 million units available; billion next year.

Within the country, several local governments have already begun to submit their requests for vaccines. On Tuesday, the Sichuan province, which has detected five local infections in its city of Chengdu – of 16 million inhabitants – announced that it will inoculate two million workers in risky activities throughout this month.

It has also stepped up supply abroad. Following the damage to the country’s image caused by deficiencies in the supply of medical equipment to other nations in the first wave of the pandemic, Chinese President Xi JInping has promised that Chinese vaccines will be “a global public good.” Indonesia, which participated in phase III of Coronavac, has just received 1.2 million doses of concentrate for its local manufacture, and next month it will get another 1.8 million, out of a total of 50 million agreed.

“We must be prepared for large-scale production,” urged Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chunlan last week during a visit to the facilities of major manufacturers. Sun, which has overseen most of the virus control operations since the pandemic began, announced plans to vaccinate workers in risky sectors this month, a group that may be around – according to figures from the Center for Control of Chinese diseases— 18.5 million people.

Geopolitical repercussions

If their reliability is confirmed, Chinese vaccines have several advantages over Western rivals that use RNA molecules. They are easier to transport and store, since they only require a temperature of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius, compared to the intense cold that those from Pfizer or Moderna need. They are also considerably cheaper: 200 yuan per dose, or about 25 euros.

Those factors make them especially attractive to developing countries. “The distribution of vaccines will follow the map of global inequalities,” says Jacob Mardell, from the German study center Merics, by email. Rich countries have stockpiled Western vaccines, while “Chinese manufacturing capacity and likely cost competitiveness for Chinese vaccines mean that China is on track to supply countries in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia,” consider the expert.

“That will add narrative fuel to Beijing’s statements on South-South cooperation and the leadership of the ‘rest’ (of the world). And there is generally a tendency to underestimate how attractive this tale is to what used to be called “the third world” at the time of the US-Soviet Union competition, “he adds.

China has already offered a billion dollars in loans to Latin America and the Caribbean for access to vaccines. Chinese President Xi Jinping has assured that the country will consider its vaccines a “good of global public utility” and will make them available to nations that request them.

Although the strategy is not without potential problems for the second world power. “If China tackles some of the problems it suffered with its faulty PPE with its vaccines, it may suffer serious damage to its reputation,” Mardell writes on the Merics website. Or also, he adds, “it may be exposed to a difference in expectations between its rhetoric and what it can actually accomplish.”

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