[China has struck deals to supply
many of its allies and economic partners in the developing world and boasted
that world leaders — including in Indonesia, Pakistan and the United Arab
Emirates — have taken the shots.]
By Gerry Shih
The comments on Saturday from
George Gao come after the government has already distributed hundreds of millions of doses to other countries,
even though the rollout has been dogged by questions over why Chinese pharmaceutical
firms have not released detailed clinical trial data about the vaccines’ efficacy.
China has struck deals to supply
many of its allies and economic partners in the developing world and boasted
that world leaders — including in Indonesia, Pakistan and the United Arab
Emirates — have taken the shots.
There have been signs that some
countries remain skeptical: The UAE recently experimented with
administering three shots of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine,
instead of two, over reports of low numbers of antibodies produced in some
people, while Singapore has stockpiled but not used Sinovac shots.
[Third
dose of Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine needed for some in UAE after low immune
response]
China is “formally considering”
options to change its vaccines to “solve the problem that the efficacy of the
existing vaccines is not high,” Gao said at a conference in Chengdu.
Gao added that one possibility was
to adjust the dosage or increase the number of doses. He said another option
was to mix vaccines that are made with different technologies, in an apparent
admission that China needs to develop messenger RNA vaccines using the
revolutionary genetic technology that Western countries have harnessed.
Gao’s remarks, which appeared
inadvertent and quickly spread through Chinese social media on Saturday before
being mostly censored, marked a departure from the rosy assessments of
Chinese-made vaccines by the government. By Sunday, Internet users were
intentionally misspelling words in their posts while discussing Gao’s comments
to keep them from being removed.
Sinopharm and Sinovac use a
conventional method of producing vaccines that contains inactivated viruses,
while other countries’ offerings, including those by Pfizer-BioNTech and
Moderna, rely on a new technique that uses messenger RNA (mRNA) to stimulate an
immune response.
The gap in efficacy between mRNA
and inactivated vaccines has been observed broadly and among other countries’
shots, too. The overall efficacy of Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine is
about 66 percent, compared with roughly 95 percent for the Pfizer-BioNTech and
Moderna shots.
Chinese pharmaceutical companies
are racing to catch up with the technology. Several Chinese companies are
beginning trials, and executives say there could be a Chinese mRNA vaccine as
early as this year.
The admission by the head of the
Chinese CDC undercut other arms of the government, including its propaganda
organs and diplomats, who have spent months touting Chinese vaccines as part of
a soft power push while aggressively sowing doubt about Western alternatives by
questioning the efficacy and safety of mRNA technology.
On Sunday, the Global Times, a
state-run newspaper that has led the way in pushing theories about the coronavirus originating from outside China, hit back
at the “hyped up” reports of Gao’s comments.
It quoted Gao as saying that his
comments had been misunderstood and that he was speaking in general terms about
how scientists, internationally, should improve their vaccine development.
“I was struck by what Gao said, not
because it is significantly different from what we have already known but
because it deviates from the official narrative on the effectiveness of Chinese
and Western vaccines,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations. “I think he was trying to push for the approval of the use
of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines in China and/or the acceleration of the development
of China’s own mRNA vaccines.”
Even before Gao’s comments, there
had been discussion about whether the Chinese companies should tweak their
formulations or vaccination regimen. Executives at Sinopharm, the state
pharmaceutical giant, said in March that they were assessing whether to include
a third booster shot as part of their vaccine’s standard administering
procedure. The company said last week that it would begin clinical tests on a
third vaccine.
More than 60 countries have
approved at least one of China’s vaccines for use. They have been in high
demand, especially among lower-income countries, which have not been able to
acquire the other vaccines.
Sinopharm has reported a
79 percent efficacy rate for its vaccine — without releasing any data —
while trials for Sinovac in Brazil and Turkey have shown an efficacy rate of
just 50 percent and more than 80 percent, respectively.
Yet even though both drugmakers
carried out mass clinical trials earlier than most other pharmaceutical
companies last year, the data still has not been published in a peer-reviewed
journal.
Foreigners traveling to China,
however, have been encouraged to use these Chinese-made vaccines to enjoy streamlined access into the country.
In Turkey, where the Sinovac is in
wide use, there has been little concern about the effectiveness of the vaccine.
Rather, the worry has been that China won’t be able to deliver the promised
100 million doses amid delays in shipments.
Brazil, Egypt and other nations
also have been clamoring for more doses as China has throttled back exports in
the face of domestic demand even as cases have been surging worldwide.
Paul Schemm in Dubai contributed to
this report.
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