To go faster, the China allows for accelerated procedures. Laboratories can conduct steps preclinical in parallel, then they are usually done one after the other.
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June 19, 2020 22h52
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China wants its vaccine at any price
Ludovic Ehret
Agence France-Presse
BEIJING — the human Trials, army mobilised, fast-track process : China is in the vanguard of a vaccine against the COVID-19. But the labs will have to overcome an image tarnished by numerous scandals health.
To immunize the faster its population and to seek international recognition, Beijing helps its businesses by providing strains of virus, or by donating financial aid — the amount of which is not revealed.
Tactic pays off for now : on the decade of vaccines currently in clinical trial (that is to say, on the man) in the world, five are chinese.
Among the research the most advanced are those of the Academy of military medical sciences, which collaborates with the pharmaceutical company CanSinoBIO.
The project is highly publicized : at the head of the research, the general Chen Wei, an epidemiologist of 54 years, regularly appears in the mesh on the screens. Volunteers of clinical trials, they already have stamps in their own image…
And less than six months after the onset of the epidemic in Wuhan (centre), the first results of the vaccine are encouraging, according to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet.
On the decade of vaccines currently in clinical trial (that is to say, on the man) in the world, five are chinese.
AFP, Noel Celis
To go faster, the China allows for accelerated procedures. Laboratories can conduct steps preclinical in parallel, then they are usually done one after the other.
A method that makes some teeth gnashing : Ding Sheng, director of the Institute of pharmacy of the prestigious Tsinghua university in Beijing, has criticized the adoption of “unconventional methods”.
“I understand that people are anxiously waiting for a vaccine. But from a scientific point of view, we cannot afford to lower our criteria, be it in the emergency”, he pleaded in the people’s Daily, the newspaper of the communist Party.
Another initiative is questionable, according to him : the authorities have provided permissions grouped “phase 1 + phase 2” to the researchers. This allows them to combine the two steps without intermediate validation.
Bribes
“China is not the only” nuance Nick Jackson, of the Coalition for the innovations of epidemic preparedness (CEPI) — an international foundation which funds research on vaccines.
“Many organizations in the world conducting trials for adaptive, which enable a fast transition of studies from phase 1 to phase 2,” said Mr. Jackson. “This approach is necessary because of the urgent need of vaccines.”
The pharmaceutical company, state-owned Sinopharm, which is currently preparing two, hope to put on the market by late 2020-early 2021.
And the director-general of the china Center for prevention and disease control aims to have a vaccine as early as September for the nursing staff.
But beyond the research, China will have to convince them of the quality of the doses produced. Because the sector has been shaken by several scandals of defective vaccines, which have plunged the public’s confidence in vaccines made in China.
“I understand that people are anxiously waiting for a vaccine. But from a scientific point of view, we cannot afford to lower our criteria, even in the emergency. ”
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Ding Sheng, director of the Institute of pharmacy of the prestigious university of Tsinghua in Beijing,
The local manufacturer Changchun Changsheng took the hit in 2018 a record fine of $ 9.1 billion yuan ($1.8 billion) after the discovery of a process of manufacturing illegal vaccine against rabies.
The same company also produces vaccines DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, polio) defective administered to more than 200,000 children.
A company that is currently working on a vaccine anti-COVID-19 was also involved in the scandal. The research Institute of biological products of Wuhan (branch of Sinopharm) had produced more than 400,000 doses DTP “does not meet standards”, according to the authorities.
Another problem is that gangrene of the sector : corruption. The press regularly reports of convictions of local officials have accepted the bribes of laboratories against the purchase of their vaccines.
Less than six months after the onset of the epidemic in Wuhan, the first results of a vaccine are encouraging, according to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet.
AFP, Noel Celis
Still smarting from the scandals, “the government is very careful in terms of the control of the requests for authorizations for vaccines”, provides to theAFP, the american professor Lung-Ji Chang, president of the Institute of medicine geno-and immune to Shenzhen (China), who is also working on a vaccine against the new coronavirus.
A Law on the administration of the vaccines came into force by the end of 2019 in order to prevent doses to be defective are found on the market.
“International reputation”
But the press has yet reported on several scandals in the past 12 months : fake vaccines, in a hospital of Hainan (in the south); children vaccinated for the wrong disease in the Hebei (north); virus brucellosis leaking during the manufacturing of a vaccine in a veterinary institute of Gansu province (north-west)…
“This is not to say that China does not have the capabilities to produce a safe and effective vaccine against the COVID-19”, shade Yanzhong Huang, a researcher at the cabinet of reflection, the american Council on Foreign Relations. He cites regulation now more severe, or the doubling of the investments of Beijing in research and development in the pharmaceutical sector between 2017 and 2021, to more than $40 billion.
And the stakes are high : the president Xi Jinping has promised that a future vaccine chinese would be a “global public good” that is made accessible to the greatest number.
“The last thing the chinese government wants would be to distribute a vaccine to be defective,” said Mr. Huang.
“The new side effects and serious side due to a vaccine produced in China would undermine the legitimacy of the regime and to its international reputation.”
