A worker performs quality control at the packaging facility of Chinese vaccine manufacturer Sinovac Biotech
Singapore:
China is in talks to have its locally produced COVID-19 vaccines evaluated by the World Health Organization, with the aim of making them available for international use, a WHO official said on Tuesday.
Hundreds of thousands of essential workers and other groups considered to be high-risk in China have received locally developed vaccines even as clinical trials were not fully completed, raising safety concerns among experts.
Socorro Escalate, WHO coordinator for essential drugs and health technologies in the Western Pacific region, told an online press conference that China has had preliminary discussions with the WHO for its vaccines be included on a list for emergency use.
The WHO Emergency Use List procedure assesses vaccines and unlicensed treatments to speed their availability in the event of a public health emergency. This helps WHO Member States and United Nations procurement agencies determine the acceptability of vaccines.
“Potentially through this emergency use, the quality and safety of these vaccines could be evaluated and their effectiveness could be assessed … and then this could be made available to our licensees,” Escalante said. .
China has at least four experimental vaccines in the final stages of clinical trials – two are developed by the state-backed China National Biotec Group (CNBG), and the other two are from Sinovac Biotech and CanSino Biologics, respectively.
They are tested in countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, and United Arab Emirates.
The UAE last month cleared the emergency use of a CNBG vaccine, the first international emergency clearance for one of China’s vaccines, just six weeks after human trials began in the Arab Gulf State.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said last month he would prioritize China and Russia in his country’s global purchases for a vaccine.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
