China says will vaccinate 'key groups' over winter, spring (updated)

Great Wall Pan Asia Holdings

19/12/2020 04:50

(Adds SCMP report saying China would vaccinate 50 million
people before February, official response on capacity building)
    BEIJING, Dec 19 (Reuters) - China will focus first on
vaccinating high-risk groups over the winter and spring before
widening the inoculation to the general public, a senior health
official said on Saturday.
    Zeng Yixin, vice minister of China's National Health
Commission (NHC) and director of the State Council's vaccine R&D
working group, warned that China's COVID-19 prevention efforts
were under increasing pressure as temperatures fall.
    "During the winter and spring seasons, carrying out novel
coronavirus vaccination work among some key population groups is
of great significance to epidemic prevention," he told a
briefing.
    China aims to actively build group immunity, and the
vaccination of high-risk groups - which include workers in the
cold chain industry, customs, healthcare, markets and public
transport - is just the first part of a "step-by-step
programme", he added.
    China has included two candidate vaccines from Sinopharm and
one from Sinovac Biotech Ltd  SVA.O  in an emergency-use
programme launched in July, targeting specific high-infection
risk groups such as medical workers and border inspectors. 
    It has also approved a vaccine from CanSino Biologics Inc
 6185.HK  for military use but has not approved any vaccine for
use among the general public.
    China is planning to vaccinate as many as 50 million people
before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday in Feb. 2021,
according to a report in the South China Morning Post. 
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2IY1AG 
    It said that Beijing would distribute 100 million doses of
vaccines made by Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech.
    Mao Junfeng, an official with China's industry ministry,
told the briefing that the firms had already completed their
"capacity construction tasks" and would be capable of meeting
demand from key population groups. He did not say how many
vaccines would be needed in total.        
    Zheng Zhongwei, the NHC official heading China's COVID-19
vaccine development team, said China had administered more than
1 million emergency doses to members of high-risk groups since
July and "no serious adverse reactions" had been detected so
far.
    "For the vaccines where we are moving quite fast, the number
of cases required for the interim stage of Phase III clinical
trials have already been obtained," Zheng said, without
elaborating on specific products. 
    Data has been submitted to the medical products regulator,
which will approve the vaccines if they meet the necessary
conditions, he added.  
    

 (Reporting by Yew Lun Tian and Roxanne Liu; Writing by David
Stanway; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and William Mallard and
Clelia Oziel)
 ((david.stanway@thomsonreuters.com; +86 21 2083 0066;))