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In the bowels of Sinovac, the Chinese laboratory at the center of the race for the vaccine

2020-09-25T02:11:36.982Z


EL PAÍS visits the factory south of Beijing that aspires to market its remedy against covid in early 2021The laboratories of Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac south of Beijing are so new they still smell like paint. In the rooms for quality controls, pairs of scientists at EPI drop drops of transparent liquid into pipettes to check the purity levels of the liquid, the protein concentration, the aluminum concentration. Several floors below, technicians in blue gowns and protected with masks, glov


The laboratories of Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac south of Beijing are so new they still smell like paint.

In the rooms for quality controls, pairs of scientists at EPI drop drops of transparent liquid into pipettes to check the purity levels of the liquid, the protein concentration, the aluminum concentration.

Several floors below, technicians in blue gowns and protected with masks, gloves and a hairnet, watch as, along two assembly lines, the clear glass vials are labeled and neatly grouped into boxes.

On the packaging, black letters on an orange and white background proclaim the content: "SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine, Inactivated".

In the global race against time to achieve a reliable vaccine against covid-19, in which scientific prestige, economic benefit and geopolitical influence are at stake, China participates with a dozen formulas.

Four are in phase three: the one developed by the Cansino firm in collaboration with the army, two by the Sinopharma pharmaceutical company and the one by Sinovac.

These last three have been authorized for emergency use in his country and have been used to immunize tens of thousands of workers considered essential: more than 10,000 people have been inoculated with theirs, says Sinovac CEO Yin Weidong .

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Sinovac's could begin to be mass-marketed as early as next year and distributed to the rest of the world, Yin argues, during a press visit to the labs.

"Our goal is to provide the vaccine to the world, including the United States and Europe," says the executive, who has received the same dose of the drug.

Initially, priority would be given to countries participating in clinical trials.

The formula is being tested in 24,000 volunteers in Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey, countries selected for their large populations and levels of disease incidence.

They will be joined by Bangladesh and, perhaps, Chile.

Although his company began researching a vaccine for covid in January, and initially focused on China and especially Wuhan, the original focus of the pandemic, the low incidence that the disease already has in this country does not allow developing reliable tests: officially, China has not detected new local infections for more than a month.

On Monday, the company will begin trials among children between the ages of three and 18 in the countries where it conducts the tests.

This month he announced that the results of phases 1 and 2 of the clinical trials had shown "good levels of safety and generation of immunity" in healthy over 60 years, after having also given positive results in adults between 18 and 59 This same year, it will begin the analysis of the results of the clinical trials in the third phase to decide if the formula is effective enough to request approval for general use.

Outside of China, the American Pfizer hopes to determine in October if its vaccine works;

Moderna expects to have tentative conclusions in November.

Sinovac's, which will be marketed under the name Coronavac, uses one of the most traditional techniques in the production of vaccines, inactivated viruses.

The same method that it has used in the development of drugs against other diseases, such as bird flu, or that is still used worldwide against polio or influenza.

The inactivated virus is inoculated into the patient so that his body begins to generate antibodies.

According to Yin, so far the results have been very encouraging: in trials in macaques, the formula has been effective for the different known strains of the coronavirus that causes covid-19.

A fact that Brazil confirms: the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, has assured that among the volunteers of his country no serious side effects have been detected, reports Efe.

This country has increased the number of participants in the study to 13,060, compared to the 9,000 initially expected.

If all goes well, the Chinese firm could manufacture about 300 million units per year starting next year in these laboratories that it began to build in March especially for the development of the vaccine, on a plot of 20,000 square meters.

Every minute, explains its packaging manager, dozens of boxes are produced in the large white space of its assembly room, so new that you can still see the hole of some plug that remains to fit.

In Brazil, the idea is for the local partner - the Butantan Institute - to manufacture its own units using Chinese technology, and distribute them to other Latin American countries, Yin explains.

"We hope that they will grant us the registration (to commercialize the formula) in as many countries as possible," he adds.

China, outside the COVAX initiative

In May, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, assured that the vaccine that his country obtains would be "a global public good" and that he would share it with the rest of the world.

In September, however, neither China nor the United States signed up to the WHO-backed COVAX initiative to make an antidote to covid accessible. Beijing, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, assures that it supports the initiative, which has received the support of 156 countries and insists that it will collaborate with the rest of the world for the cure.

Although he has left the door open to join in later, he has given indications that such cooperation will take place outside the multilateral framework.

According to Foreign spokesman Wang Wenbin, the Chinese plans are "basically the same as COVAX." It has already promised priority access to partner countries.

To the nations of the Mekong basin - Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar -, neighbors and for the most part with a weak health system.

Also to participants in his initiative of the Silk Road and the Shanghai Organization for Cooperation, a security alliance promoted by Beijing.

Information about the coronavirus

- Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the pandemic

- This is how the coronavirus curve evolves in Spain and in each autonomy

- Download the tracking application for Spain

- Search engine: The new normal by municipalities

- Guide to action against the disease

Source: elparis

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