Some Chinese embassies starting to accept proof of vaccination with foreign-made vaccines for travel to China
April 27, 2021 Category Health, Weekly
The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. has started to accept proof of vaccination from people seeking to enter China who have been inoculated in the United States with Covid-19 shots made by U.S. drugmakers. Travelers who have had the Pfizer-BioNTech shot or the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines can submit proof as part of the documentation needed for entry into China, the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement. The new policy suggests that travel restrictions will be gradually eased. China has not yet approved vaccines developed by non-Chinese drug makers for use domestically, although BioNTech’s vaccine is in the pipeline for authorization by July. BioNTech has agreed to cooperate with Shanghai Fosun Pharma to deliver 100 million doses to China in 2021, pending approval. Fosun has sole marketing rights for the vaccine in China, while BioNTech partners with Pfizer in other parts of world. Other Chinese embassies that accept non-Chinese vaccination records include the Embassy in Iraq, which accepts vaccinations with the AstraZeneca vaccine. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last month China was willing to hold talks with other countries over mutual recognition of the Chinese QR health code, which would contain a digital certificate of Covid-19 vaccination.
A scientist who took part in the international team studying the origins of Covid-19 has expressed surprise and dissatisfaction at remarks made by World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus over further researching the hypothesis that the virus leaked from a laboratory in China. The WHO Director General has disregarded the hard-won research outcome and consensus among the international science community in his remarks, the scientist said. An international team of scientists visited Wuhan between January 14 and February 10 to conduct a Covid-19 origin-tracing study, before releasing a 120-page report on March 30 saying the virus most probably jumped from an animal, potentially a bat or pangolin, to an unknown intermediate animal host and then to humans. The report added that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus spread to humans through a laboratory leak. He also rebutted Tedros’ remarks that members of the international team encountered difficulties in accessing raw data.
The Chinese-made CoronaVac Covid-19 vaccine has proven to be very effective in preventing infections, hospitalizations, admissions to intensive care units, and deaths, Chilean Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation Andres Couve said when he received the eighth shipment of the vaccine. According to the Chilean government CoronaVac has an efficacy of 67% in preventing symptomatic Covid-19, up to 85% effectiveness in preventing hospitalization, 89% in preventing admission to an intensive care unit, and it is 80% effective in preventing death caused by the virus. A vaccine’s efficacy is the protection it provides under real-life conditions and the results of the study were based on CoronaVac’s effectiveness 14 days after the second dose. The study included about 10.5 million people aged 16 or older.
Meanwhile, Chinese Covid-19 vaccine producers such as Sinovac and CanSinoBIO are considering technology transfers to other countries to help address the global vaccine inequity issue, company executives said at the 2021 Boao Forum for Asia (BFA). “China plans to produce over 3 billion Covid-19 vaccines this year. The capacity can reach around 5 billion doses this year,” Zheng Zhongwei, Director of the Development Center for Medical Science and Technology of the National Health Commission (NHC), said. Globally, about 800 million doses had been administered, about 80% of which were in middle- and upper-income areas, said Qiao Jianrong, Coordinator of the health systems and health security team at the WHO in Beijing. Yin Weidong, CEO of Sinovac Biotech, said that the company will try to realize technology transfer to 10 countries as soon as possible. Sinovac has produced 260 million doses, of which 60% were provided to other countries. Sinovac’s daily production exceeds 6 million doses. Yu Xuefeng, Chairman and CEO of another Chinese vaccine producer CanSinoBio, said the company is considering technology transfer to some qualified countries like Mexico and Pakistan.
Three Chinese pharmaceutical companies have in the past three weeks signed agreements with Russia’s sovereign wealth fund RDIF to annually produce a combined 260 million doses of the Russian Sputnik-V Covid-19 vaccine. On March 29, RDIF and Shenzhen Yuanxing Gene-tech Co, a biotechnology company, agreed to cooperate to produce more than 60 million doses of the Sputnik-V vaccine. In an April 1 deal, RDIF and TopRidge Pharma, a subsidiary of Tibet Rhodiola Pharmaceutical Holding, agreed to manufacture more than 100 million doses, and in an April 19 deal Hualan Biological Bacterin agreed to produce 100 million doses. The combined amount of vaccines involved in these deals will be sufficient to vaccinate 130 million people, given Sputnik-V’s dual-shot procedure.
This overview is based on reporting by the China Daily, Shanghai Daily and Global Times.
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