It's an unusual move that raises ethical and safety questions, as companies and governments worldwide race to develop a vaccine that will stop the spread of the coronavirus. 9News
Another company, Sinovac Biotech Ltd., has injected 90 per cent of its employees and family members, or about 3,000 people, most under the emergency-use provision, CEO Yin Weidong said. It has also provided tens of thousands of rounds of its CoronaVac to the Beijing city government.
Now, large Chinese firms including telecom giant Huawei and broadcaster Phoenix TV have announced they're working with Sinopharm to get the vaccine for their employees. The Chinese government referenced the World Health Organisation's emergency-use principles to create its own through a strict process, National Health Commission official Zheng Zhongwei said at a news conference Friday."We've made it very clear that the COVID-19 vaccine we put into emergency use are safe," Zheng said. "Their safety can be ensured but their efficacy is yet to be determined.
"If it's in the U.S. where the virus is still raging that's a bit different, but in a country like China it doesn't seem to make sense to me," he said. "Because there's not enough of the virus in China locally to deduce anything, you're introducing a whole host of others factors" by injecting people outside of trials.
He didn't say whether his was an emergency-use case, but the timing of his vaccination suggests it was. He took the first dose in late July, when the emergency inoculations were getting started and the trials were all but over. Scant information is publicly available about the program's scope, size, and scientific merit. CNBG and parent Sinopharm declined to comment. Zheng, the National Health Commission official, did not know about the Kan Chai case.
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