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Opinion

Chinese vaccines safer and affordable options for Bangladesh


Bangladeshpost
Published : 13 May 2021 04:15 PM | Updated : 13 May 2021 04:17 PM

The coronavirus pandemic continues ripping through many countries around the world. After Europe and the Americas, South Asia has now been its new epicenter. India is the worst victim of the latest wave of the virus, and other countries of the region are also struggling to get rid of coronavirus with high infection rates.

In the fight against Covid-19, Bangladesh, with its limited resources, achieved remarkable successes during the first wave of the virus. The government then earned praises from the global community for its initiatives to mitigate the highly infectious disease. Bangladesh also gradually started getting back to the time before the pandemic.

However, the new wave of the virus has turned things upside down in Bangladesh. As the current variants are more deadly than those before, Bangladesh has witnessed a fresh spike in the number of infections and fatalities in recent weeks. As a result, the government has intensified its fight against the virus. It has also widened international cooperation, especially with China, in this field.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen attended a virtual foreign ministers' meeting involving China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Bangladesh approved a proposal for the local manufacturing of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine. Local companies that will collaborate with the Chinese pharmaceutical companies will begin co-production of the vaccine as soon as possible.

Bangladesh is also going to join China's COVID vaccine storage facility for South Asia. All the countries in the region can use the doses from the facility for urgent needs without any bureaucratic complexities. Bangladesh will buy Chinese vaccines as going to productions is impossible overnight.

As far as I know, the Bangladesh embassy in Beijing is trying its best to turn the government's will into action by forging ahead cooperation with China in the fight against Covid-19. As China has  already been flooded with demands of the vaccines from around the world, Bangladesh Ambassador to China, Mahbub Uz Zaman is working hard and using his personal connections with Chinese officials to get the vaccines as soon as possible. 

As a time-tested friend, China has also extended its helping hands to Bangladesh. Five lakh doses of the Sinopharm vaccine as gifts have already been handed over to Bangladesh. The government has expressed gratitude to China for commendable efforts in combating coronavirus and for unwavering support to the various countries of the World including Bangladesh to prevent global outbreaks.

Both—the Chinese and the Bangladesh—governments have been trying their best in doing their part to save the people of Bangladesh from the devastating pandemic. The people are also grateful to the Chinese and have firm confidence in Chinese vaccines. But unfortunately, some media are still running half-true and untrue stories against Chinese vaccines.

These stories are nothing but propaganda tools against China and people will never buy them. Because the world knows that the Sinopharm vaccine, produced by Beijing Bio-Institute of Biological Products Co Ltd, a subsidiary of China National Biotec Group (CNBG), is enlisted by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, giving the green light for global administration of this vaccine.

Everybody knows that Chinese vaccines have been proven to protect people against COVID-19 in a safe, effective, and affordable way. Many countries have so far granted market approval or emergency use for two Chinese vaccines. As a result, China's vaccine producers have been required to plan and increase production capacity and contribute to vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries. Chinese vaccines are also joining the worldwide battle against the contagious virus.

Chinese vaccines kill viral particles to expose the human body's immune system to the virus without risking a serious disease response. By comparison, the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are to inject part of the coronavirus's genetic code into the body, triggering the body to begin making viral proteins, but not the whole virus, which is enough to train the immune system to attack.

Chinese vaccines are a more traditional method that is successfully used in many well-known vaccines like rabies over the years, while the vaccines of Moderna and Pfizer are of a new type and there was no successful example of them being used in the population in the past.

One of the main advantages of Chinese vaccines is that they can be stored in a standard refrigerator at 2-8 degrees Celsius, while Moderna's vaccine needs to be stored at -20C and Pfizer's vaccine at -70C. It means that Chinese vaccines are a lot more useful to Bangladesh and other developing countries which might not be able to store large amounts of vaccine at such low temperatures.

If we look at the level of efficacy of the Chinese vaccines, we can see that the World Health Organization (WHO) has recently approved the Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use, which is a prerequisite for inclusion in the global vaccine solidarity initiative, COVAX. The WHO has said the vaccine is easy to store, making it suitable for locations with limited resources, and proved 79 percent effective in clinical trials.

 “The addition of this vaccine has the potential to rapidly accelerate COVID-19 vaccine access for countries seeking to protect health workers and populations at risk”, said Dr. Mariângela Simão, WHO Assistant-Director General for Access to Health Products, adding that “We urge the manufacturer to participate in the COVAX Facility and contribute to the goal of more equitable vaccine distribution.”

We also know that interim data from a late-stage trial in Turkey showed that the Chinese vaccine was 91.25 percent effective. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) said the Sinopharm vaccine was 86 percent effective. An analysis in the UAE showed the vaccine to have a 99 percent seroconversion rate of neutralizing antibodies and 100 percent effectiveness in preventing moderate and severe cases of the disease. The analysis shows no serious safety concerns.

Brazilian researchers also reported that the Sinovac vaccines were safe and had 78 percent efficacy in preventing mild cases of COVID-19. They also said the Chinese vaccine is 100 percent effective in preventing severe and moderate infections.

The interim results of phase III clinical trials show that Sinopharm's inactivated vaccine has an efficacy of 79.34 percent and the neutralizing antibody-positive conversion rate was 99.52 percent. The early-stage clinical trials report published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases medical journal also said that the Sinovac vaccine appears to be safe and stimulates a rapid immune response.

China has already delivered over half a billion doses of vaccines to many nations and is overloaded with demands of more than three billion doses to produce by this year for many countries. No country has yet to report any major side effects except for pain at the injection site, headache, muscle pain, and fever.

Chinese vaccines are exported by air in temperature-controlled boxes. Thermometric indicators monitor and record the entire process to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. Therefore, recipients can use designated software to read the recorded data to verify that the vaccine has indeed been kept at between 2 and 8 degrees celsius. 

Serbian health authorities said they assessed the necessary documentation and scientific evidence in a highly professional and thorough manner according to all European Union and World Health Organization (WHO) standards, which confirmed the quality, efficiency, and above all the safety of the Chinese vaccine.

Moreover, as China has joined the WHO-led COVAX initiative to promote international cooperation on vaccines and equitable global distribution of vaccines, A WHO team in China has worked with producers of the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines.

Given the information, it can easily be realized that Chinese vaccines are safer than any other vaccines to fight coronavirus. They are also affordable, easily storable, and bearable anywhere in the world. These vaccines are, therefore, safer and affordable options for Bangladesh as well. As the pandemic is completely a humanitarian and health issue, politics should have no saying about the vaccines and cooperation on the matter.  

Though the vaccines have raised our hopes to defeat the virus, we are still not capable enough to fight another pandemic if it breaks out. Looking to the future, Bangladesh has to make good preparations for the imminent epidemics by strengthening its health system and training health workers, and so on. Hence Bangladesh can deepen its cooperation with China on respective fronts from now on.

- Md Enamul Hassan is a news editor and broadcast journalist at China Media Group (CMG) in Beijing, China.