CHINA Started First Mass Production of COVID-19 Vaccine
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Vaccine against CORONA
CHINA
Started
First Mass Production
of
COVID-19
Vaccine
A
vaccine factory in China has qualified to mass produce a COVID-19 vaccine. In a
press release on Wednesday, China National Biotech Group said that in mid-July
its world's first inactivated COVID-19 vaccine production plant in Beijing
passed joint bio-safety inspections organized by relevant departments, and is
qualified to put a vaccine into mass production at any time. Previously, the
production facility had obtained a COVID-19 vaccine production license.
China made breakthrough in battling the Corona Virus
pandemic, with China National Biotec Group CNBG announced that an inactivated
COVID-19 vaccine production workshop of its affiliated Beijing institute of
biological products, the first and largest of its kind in the world, has passed
national examination. The facility was granted a production certificate and it is now
available for use, CNBG, an affiliate of the state-run China National
Pharmaceutical Group, said in a statement sent to the Global Times.
The Beijing institute took only two months to
finish building the facility on April 15. Related government departments
conducted a thorough bio-security examination of the production workshop in
July, and concluded the facility met national standards, and could go into
operation for mass production of COVID-19 vaccines, read the
statement. After the Beijing manufacturing workshop and another production
facility belonging to CNBG's Wuhan institute of biological products begin
operations, CNBG will be capable of ensuring an annual capacity of 220 million
doses of vaccines, according to its developer. These millions of doses are large to first immunize medical staff and
personnel working at airports and border checkpoints, Tao Lina, a
Shanghai-based vaccine researcher mentioned.
"It is possible that China could have a
COVID-19 vaccine as early as the end of October as some domestically made
COVID-19 vaccines have entered phase three clinical trials and needs about a
month to observe their effects on samples," Tao said. After securing
a certain amount of vaccine for China's strategic reserves, exports can be
considered, Tao noted, adding countries such as the Philippines and Brazil are
potential destinations. Sinopharm is launching the fourth major COVID-19
vaccine trial in Brazil and will seek regulatory approval soon, Reuters
reported. The company's candidate vaccine is already being tested in the
United Arab Emirates with 15,000 local volunteers, including UAE nationals and
expatriates there, since middle July. In
another major step, German firm BioNTech
and its Chinese partner Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical announced Wednesday that
72 trial participants have been dosed with BNT162b1, a COVID-19 vaccine
candidate based on BioNTech's mRNA technology, following the Chinese
regulators' examination and approval. The two firms are jointly developing the
coronavirus vaccine candidate in China too.
In another sign of progress, scientists from
the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions announced Monday a
breakthrough in the development of a recombinant COVID-19 vaccine, envisioning
the vaccine's mass production to be feasible at a low cost in the future.
A spokesperson for Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology said in late July that China has 13 firms that have
begun capacity building for COVID-19 vaccines, and nine have been approved to
start clinical trials. Four of the nine
firms are pushing for an inactivated vaccine technical route, three are
focusing on nucleic acid vaccines, one is based on adenovirus vector vaccines
and one has opted for recombinant protein vaccines, media reports say. The nation's advances in the research and
manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines have been translated into remarkable gains in
vaccine-related stocks on the A-share market. CanSino Biologics revealed in late June that a
recombinant novel COVID-19 vaccine it developed with a military research team
has been granted a special one-year military drug approval………………..
----CGTN & International Agencies
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