Chinese company says coronavirus vaccine ready by early 2021
Beijing: A Chinese pharmaceutical company on Thursday said the coronavirus vaccine it is developing should be ready by early 2021 for distribution worldwide, including the United States.
Yin Weidong, the CEO of SinoVac, vowed to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration to sell CoronaVac in the United States if it passes its third and final round of testing in humans. Yin said he personally has been given the experimental vaccine.
At the very beginning, our strategy was designed for China and for Wuhan. Soon after that in June and July we adjusted our strategy, that is to face the world, Yin said, referring to the Chinese city were the virus first emerged.
Our goal is to provide the vaccine to the world including the US, EU and others, Yin said.
Stringent regulations in the US, European Union, Japan and Australia have historically blocked the sale of Chinese vaccines. But Yin said that could change.
SinoVac is developing one of China's top four vaccine candidates along with state-owned SinoPharm, which has two in development, and military-affiliated private firm CanSino.
More than 24,000 people are currently participating in clinical trials of CoronaVac in Brazil, Turkey, and Indonesia, with additional trials scheduled for Bangladesh and possibly Chile, Yin said.
SinoVac chose those countries because they all had serious outbreaks, large populations and limited research and development capacity, he said.
He spoke to reporters during a tour of a SinoVac plant south of Beijing. Built in a few months from scratch, the plant is designed to enable SinoVac to produce half a million vaccine doses a year. The bio-secure facility was already busy on Thursday filling tiny bottles with the vaccine and boxing them.
The company projects it will be able to produce a few hundred million doses of the vaccine by February or March of next year.
SinoVac is also starting to test small doses of CoronaVac on children in the three countries because of the high rate of infection among young people there.
Yin said the company would prioritize distribution of the vaccine to countries hosting human trials of CoronaVac.
While the vaccine has not yet passed the phase 3 clinical trials, a globally accepted standard, SinoVac has already injected thousands of people in China under an emergency use provision.
Yin said he was one of the first to receive the experimental vaccine months ago along with researchers after phase one and two of human trials showed no serious adverse effects. He said that self-injecting showed his support for CoronaVac.
This is kind of a tradition of our company, Yin said, adding that he had done the same with a hepatitis vaccine under development.
Earlier this year, China permitted emergency use of vaccine candidates for at-risk populations like border personnel and medical workers if companies could show good safety and good antibodies from tests of about 1,000 people, Yin said.
SinoVac received that approval in June along with SinoPharm and CanSino, and was able to provide tens of thousands of doses of CoronaVac to Beijing's municipal government, Yin said.
SinoVac employees qualified for emergency use of the vaccine because an outbreak inside the company would cripple its ability to develop a vaccine, he said.
About 90% of the company's staff have received it.
We are confident that our research of the COVID-19 vaccines can meet the standards of the US and EU countries, Yin said.
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Karnataka Cabinet to meet again to discuss SC internal reservation during recruitment
Bengaluru (PTI): The Karnataka Cabinet has decided to meet again to discuss the issue of providing internal reservation among Scheduled Castes for direct recruitment in the government sector, as deliberations on the matter remained incomplete.
While no specific date for the next meeting has been announced, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil told reporters it would be held "at the earliest" and reiterated the government's commitment to the issue.
The issue came up for discussion at the Cabinet meeting on Thursday, amid reports of rifts between SC(Right) and SC (Left) factions within the ruling Congress over providing internal reservation in the recruitment to 56,432 vacant posts.
"The government is committed to providing internal reservation. We will meet again for further discussion. The chief minister will decide when to meet at the earliest. It will be a Cabinet meeting and will be held as early as possible," Patil said.
He said, "We had a detailed discussion on this matter for some time, but it was incomplete because many ministers are yet to speak on this. The order already issued (for filling up vacancies) will not be disturbed, and about other things, we will discuss in the next meeting."
The state government decided to conduct recruitment for 56,432 vacant jobs based on the reservation order in force before December 28, 2022, (15 per cent for SCs and 3 per cent for STs), due to the stay on the enhanced quota and internal reservation, while continuing to pursue its case in court.
The previous BJP government had increased the reservation quota for SCs from 15 per cent to 17 per cent and for Scheduled Tribes from 3 per cent to 7 per cent, raising the state's total reservation to 56 per cent, exceeding the Supreme Court-mandated 50 per cent ceiling.
While this matter is still in court, the Congress government decided to provide internal reservation by slicing up the 17 per cent reservation matrix given to 101 scheduled castes, under three groups, with a formula of six, six, and five per cent respectively.
According to sources, the SC(Left)/Madiga community, which has fought for internal reservation for decades, opposes recruitment for 56,432 jobs without providing internal reservation.
The SC (Right)/Holeya community, however, favoured recruitment without providing internal reservation.
At the meeting, the Cabinet gave administrative approval for Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation to purchase 144 'BS-VI' urban transport diesel buses at an estimated cost of Rs 62 crores.
It also granted administrative approval for the purchase of hardware and software for implementing ICJS (Inter-operable Criminal Justice System) and IT services in the state under the Police Modernisation Project at an estimated cost of Rs 227.58 crores.
The Cabinet also asked the health minister to speak with officers, doctors and other staffers appointed on a permanent, contract, temporary, or outsourced basis in the health department, who have threatened to go on strike over their various demands.
Approval was also given for amendments to certain sections of the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964, and the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976, regarding advertisement charges under local bodies.
