Chinese province vows to control Covid-19 outbreak ‘by end of August’
- Chief of health commission in Henan, one of the centres of China’s recent outbreak, cites ‘determination to fight this tough battle well’
- Number of new infections continues to drop, with eastern province of Jiangsu still accounting for the majority
Kan Quancheng, director of Henan’s health commission, has pledged to contain the outbreak in the province “by the end of August”. The virus was first found there in a hospital in Zhengzhou.
“[We have the] confidence and determination to fight this tough battle well, to control the outbreak as quickly as possible, to ensure that the outbreak is well controlled by the end of August, and to provide protection for economic and social development,” Kan said on Saturday, according to local media.
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The authorities have since launched investigations into possible dereliction of duty among local government officials in Henan and Jiangsu provinces, where the latest infections have been centred.
The Henan government said it was investigating Yucheng county over its “poor control” over the outbreak and suspected under-reporting of new infections, while 12 officials from Yangzhou in Jiangsu have been reprimanded for “inadequate performance of responsibilities” to control the outbreak. The 12 included including Zhao Guoxiang, the secretary of the Yangzhou health commission’s Communist Party committee.
Meanwhile, there have been questions over whether Chinese vaccines are effective against the Delta variant. Gao Qiang, general manager of Sinovac Life Sciences, said that the level of protective antibodies that company’s vaccine produced against the Delta variant was roughly a sixth to a quarter of that for previous strains, but it could still make an “impact” in protecting those receiving it.
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“Judging from the recent situation in Guangdong, Nanjing and other places, the completion of two doses of vaccination can significantly reduce the risk of contracting severe illness [when] infected with the Delta strain,” Gao said in a Q&A published by Shanghai-based ThePaper.cn.
Gao also said Sinovac had completed studies of a booster shot, and planned to submit clinical application materials for vaccines protecting against Delta variant strains in the third quarter of this year.
“The third dose of vaccination is still as safe as the first and second doses,” Gao said. “At the same time, the level of neutralising antibodies can be rapidly increased within a week.”
China had fully vaccinated more than 777 million people against Covid-19 as of Thursday, according to the NHC, with more than 1.8 billion doses having been given in total.
