Source:
https://scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3123421/coronavirus-chinese-teams-have-been-looking-vaccines-covid-19
China/ Science

Coronavirus: Chinese teams have been looking for vaccines for Covid-19 variants for ‘a long time’, expert says

  • Researchers have been ‘tracking and analysing a global database of Covid-19 patients’, military scientist Chen Wei says
  • Work ‘began a long time ago for a new and stronger vaccine targeting mutations’, she says
Chinese teams began looking at vaccines to fight Covid-19 variants “a long time ago”, according to military medical scientist Chen Wei. Photo: Weibo

Chinese teams began looking at vaccines to fight Covid-19 variants “a long time ago”, according to a leading military medical scientist.

“We are running extended targeted studies tracking [vaccine] safety via national databases. We are also tracking the vaccine’s efficacy rate against the latest mutations,” Chen Wei, a researcher at the Institute of Military Medicine under the Academy of Military Sciences, said in an interview with state broadcaster CCTV on Saturday.

“We have been tracking and analysing a global database of Covid-19 patients with more than 400,000 samples through genetics and biologics. Our labs then cross-examine the responses of virus variants – such as the Brazilian, South African and British strains – to existing vaccines,” she said.

Chen, who is also a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said “research began a long time ago for a new and stronger vaccine targeting mutations”.

While it might not be necessary to have specialist vaccines for the different variants – much depends on how they respond to the Covid-19 vaccines already being rolled out – Chen said China wanted to be prepared for any eventuality.

“The vaccines [targeting variants] may not be used, but we have to prepare them,” she said.

The CCTV interview came just days after Chinese firm CanSino Biologics released an interim analysis of the results of its final-stage vaccine trials, which showed the product to have an efficacy rate of more than 65 per cent at preventing people getting Covid-19, and 90 per cent at protecting against severe symptoms.

The single-dose vaccine, known as Ad5-nCOV, was developed by CanSino in collaboration with a team of researchers, led by Chen, from the Institute of Military Medicine.

China has now approved four locally developed vaccines for general use, but has yet to give the green light to any foreign products.

Other nations and companies are also working on vaccine products to combat mutations of the coronavirus.

American firm Moderna said recently it had developed an updated version of its vaccine to fight the South African strain of the coronavirus and had sent it to the National Institutes of Health for evaluation.

US company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech are also looking into booster formulas for their Covid-19 vaccine, but said their original product was effective against the new strains, a claim echoed by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

Earlier this month, a small study found a vaccine made by Chinese firm Sinopharm and a second developed by Chongqing Zhifei could trigger immunity against the South Africa variant of the coronavirus, but their effect appeared weaker.