Chinese Public May See COVID-19 Vaccine by End of Year, Official Says

The head biosafety expert for China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention has claimed that the country could have a vaccine ready for general population use as soon as November, touting the country’s rapid progress on COVID-19 vaccine development.

The official, Guizhen Wu, said on a state-controlled television network that because China’s phase 3 trials of vaccine candidates have been going smoothly, it’s possible that the general public could have access to a vaccine by November or December.

The biosafety expert claimed that the nation is leading the race for a vaccine, as promising candidates inch closer to wrapping up phase 3 trials and seeking regulatory approval.

“At present, China is at the forefront of the whole world in development and production of vaccines,” she said. “There are currently nine types of COVID-19 vaccines in the world that have entered phase three [trials], and China accounts for five.”

The Chinese vaccine candidates currently in phase 3 trials are being developed by Sinopharm, Sinovac, CanSino Biologics and Fosun Pharma, which is collaborating with BioNTech.

One of those companies, China’s state-owned Sinopharm, recently disclosed that hundreds of thousands of Chinese patients have already received one of its two vaccine candidates through the government’s emergency use program and claimed that the vaccine effectively protected against infection (DID, Sept. 15).

Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb responded to the official’s announcement yesterday, characterizing China’s approach as hasty.

“China's primary goal always seemed to be get shots in arms quickly, willing to accept less effective vaccines in the first wave in order to get them to patients fast — betting, perhaps, that some protection now was better than more robust protection later,” he said.

Gottlieb said on Sunday that the American public should not expect a vaccine for mass use until next year, although he predicted that high-risk individuals could be vaccinated by the end of 2020. — James Miessler