I think it is a matter of pride. They want to beat China to it.
Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)
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I think it is a matter of pride. They want to beat China to it.
Intrepid
Major
This competition between nations is bullshit.
China will likely lose the race:
There's no one to test it on. The vaccines are likely on par with Western ones.
Intrepid
Major
It is only important what place humanity occupies. Individual nations are insignificant.
The US is pressuring other countries to not allow Chinese companies in to test vaccines. The global propaganda war on Chinese also works against Chinese vaccine companies.
So even if a Chinese vaccine works and can save tens of millions of lives, no one seems to care. West would rather die than use a Chinese vaccine.
Most of Chinese vacccine companies are focusing on Brazil, UAE, Chile, Russia and Saudi for cooperation. It might take some more time than western companies that have established relationship and connection. However, I do think giving the fact that the virus is still spreading fast in many countries. Chinese vaccine companies should be able to find partners. There are only 3 Chinese vaccine companies that are entering clinical trial 3 and only CanSino still is without a partner. Although CanSino is approved by the Chinese military to be put into limited use so that should speed things up somewhat.
India's Serum Institute is producing a generic version of the Oxford University / AstraZeneca vaccine. That one entered limited Phase III trials in May in the United Kingdom and Brazil (involving a few thousand people).
Meanwhile, with 100,000 people in the UAE.
So China might be a month or two behind but its vaccine will be far better tested.
Why would Sinopharm go to the UAE (United Arab Emirates in the Middle East) for testing? The answer is, you don't test vaccines by dosing people and then deliberately infecting them, as that would be unethical. Instead, you give some people the vaccine and then see if they catch the virus naturally. That is probably why Sinopharm isn't doing its Phase III trials in China, where the coronavirus has been almost totally eradicated. Presumably the virus is prevalent in the UAE, and that is why the final trial will be there.
Edit: Sinopharm's trial in the UAE is Phase III, not Phase II.
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One of the stated reasons Sinopharm's decided on UAE was to trial the vaccine in a more diverse racial setting. It will help identify effectiveness of vaccine across various race and ethnicity.
Sinovac is cooperating with Brazil and sharing 60-100 million doses with Brazil. It also pursues Indonesia and Turkey and hopefully an European country for Phase III trial. Although the initial 9000 participants are less than it would need to get a comprehensive understanding of the vaccine. As for Sinopharm, it actually only got 15000 participators in UAE which is good enough. But it has added Brazil Parana state to expand its phase III trial. FDA is looking to approve vaccines within 5-6 months after the start of a Phase III trial.