by Patrick Baert
A researcher in a lab coat in Beijing holds up the hopes of humanity in his fingers: “Coronavac”, an experimental vaccine against the coronavirus that has upended the world.
Sinovac Biotech, which is conducting one of the four clinical trials that have been authorised in China, has claimed great progress in its research and promising results among monkeys.
While human trials have just started, the company says it is ready to make 100 million doses per year to combat the virus, which surfaced in central China late last year before spreading across the globe and killing more than 220,000 people.
Thousands of shots of the vaccine, which is based on an inactivated pathogen, have already been produced and packaged in a white and orange case emblazoned with the name “Coronavac”.
While the drug has a long way to go before it is approved, the company must show that it can produce it on a large scale and submit batches to be controlled by the authorities.
The World Health Organization has warned that developing a vaccine could take 12 to 18 months, and Sinovac does not know when its half-millilitre injection will be ready for the market.
“It’s the question everyone is asking themselves,” Sinovac director of brand management Liu Peicheng told AFP.
Nasdaq-listed Sinovac has experience in mass-producing a drug against a global virus: it was the first pharmaceutical company to market a vaccine against H1N1, or swine flu, in 2009.
More than 100 labs around the world are scrambling to come up with a vaccine, but only seven — including Sinovac — are currently in clinical trials, according to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Sinovac has published results showing that its vaccine has “largely protected” macaques from infection in an animal trial.
It’s findings have yet to be peer reviewed by the global scientific community.

Volunteers abroad

The company has since conducted human trials, administering the serum on 144 volunteers in April in eastern Jiangsu province.
Sinovac, which has some 1,000 employees, hopes to see results on the safety of its product by the end of June following the first two phases of clinical trials.
The firm will then move to phase three of the trials, which will determine whether the vaccine is effective among carriers of the virus.
But Sinovac is facing a problem for phase three. There are too few cases of infections in China nowadays to have enough volunteers for the decisive tests.
The country has largely brought the coronavirus under control after imposing an unprecedented lockdown on the central city of Wuhan and its surrounding Hubei province.
Only around 600 people remain hospitalised in the country and few new cases are reported every day.
This means that Sinovac may have to look for human guinea pigs abroad.
“Currently we are talking to several countries in Europe and in Asia,” said Meng Weining, Sinovac’s director for international affairs.
Typically several thousand people would be needed for phase three, but “it’s not easy to get these numbers in any country,” Meng said.

‘Day and night’

Even with success in the next stages, Sinovac would not be able to produce enough vaccines to treat the entire world population.
But Meng said the company is ready to collaborate with foreign partners which already buy its other vaccines against the flu and hepatitis.
As it continues its research, the company is getting ready for mass production.
Sinovac is building a production facility in the south of the capital that should be up and running by the end of the year.
“We work day and night, we have three shift working groups, for 24 hours, so that means we don’t waste any minute for the vaccine development,” Meng said.
– AFP

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
You May Also Like

Singapore civil society responds to Universal Periodic Review

Note: The writer is a member of We Believe in Second Chances,…

ST quoting Edelman’s survey: 67 per cent of Singaporeans trust the Government

Quoting the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer survey, local media, the Straits Times…

【舆论】新加坡公民参与的“黑洞”

作者:Kathy Xu “想象一下,如果有人突然不停钻入你家的墙上,让你家出现一个洞,而你无法阻止它。你试着告诉他然后阻止,可是无论你说什么,似乎都听不进听不懂。钻洞的噪音和浑浊的水不断涌入充斥在你家,把其他比你更弱小的家也摧毁了。你顿时会感到无助,似乎没有人在意你说的话,也不理解或关心你,你的家人或其他不情愿的难民向你诉说恐惧。” 虽然以上情景只是一种比喻,但它却可能发生在建设跨岛线时,那些居住在中央集水区自然保护区边缘的弱小动物。 当我在2013年第一次听到有关计划要在中央集水区自然保护区建设跨岛线时,我感到无比担心。 作为一个自然爱好者,我担心这会影响了原始和次生林,还有野生动物。威尔森和我真的很开心能够看见一些环保团体如NUS Toddycats和Cicada Trees在麦里芝森林(MacRitchie forests)建设步行道,让更多人能够更照顾该地区。 我们也在2016年签署一份请愿书,对中央集水区自然保护区内的跨岛线建设工程提出上诉,并将其呈交至陆路交通管理局。 2013年至2019年间,麦里芝保护区不断引进自然步道,还组织了跨岛线工作组,让环保团体与住在中央集水区自然保护区边缘的居民参与闭门会议。 在数次的会议以及两个阶段的环境影响评估,同时也纳入了各种环保团体的意见,得出的好消息是,陆交局愿意听取环保团体的意见,两个环境影响评估工作皆采取了严格的缓解措施,如大幅度减少为中央集水区自然保护区土壤评估而要钻取的钻孔数量。…

"Totally irresponsible" to support IS, says Yaacob Ibrahim

  The Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs, Yaacob Ibrahim, says it is “totally…