Chinese laboratory Sinovac suspends production of vaccines against covid-19, according to media

The Chinese company Sinovac Biotech, manufacturer of inactivated vaccines, has suspended the production of vaccines against covid-19, according to an internal document cited by several local media.

This document mentions the total interruption of production and that the products would no longer be available for sale, the official newspaper reported. Global Times.

(Be sure to read: Masks return to some US hospitals due to a peak in covid infections).

Since January 2024, Sinovac Life Sciences, a subsidiary of Sinovac Biotech, has ceased issuing performance bonuses to employees involved in projects related to covid-19.

Observers cited by the newspaper suggest that this decision responds to the decrease in demand in the market for vaccines against covid-19.

Although the decision has not been officially confirmed by Sinovac Biotechthe news sparked intense discussions online, some focused on the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.

(Also: New variant of covid: Ombudsman asked to take measures to avoid complications).

Shao Yiming, an immunologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suggested that The suspension is due to the wide availability of vaccine options and decreased demandgiven the establishment of immunity against the virus in China.

Additionally, he highlighted the pressure on manufacturers to address virus mutations, with several vaccines approved for emergency use in December 2023.

Still, experts emphasize that the main purpose of covid vaccines is to protect against death and serious illness, not necessarily infection.

Last May, the first vaccine developed by China against covid-19 based on messenger RNA, created by the CSPC Pharmaceutical group, began to be used in the northern province of Hebei, opening a new market in the Asian giant.

(Of your interest: JN.1, new variant of covid-19 in Colombia: is there any population at greater risk?).

Chinese health authorities approved the emergency use of this drug at the end of March and recommended its use as a booster for previous immunizations, especially against the omicron variants of the virus.

For almost three years, Beijing imposed a strict “zero covid” policy that implied an almost total closure of borders: Several types of visas were no longer issued and only Chinese citizens and a small number of foreigners could enter the country, after which a minimum of 14 days of quarantine awaited them in a hotel assigned by the authorities and paid for by the traveler.

Within the territory, the strategy was characterized by the confinement of entire cities and closures of businesses in some cases for several months, the isolation in hospitals and state centers of the sick and their contacts, and the obligation to present negative PCR tests to access most places.

At the end of 2022, when the impossibility of controlling the expansion of the contagious omicron variant became clear, the dismantling of the strategy began, and on January 8 the reduction from category A – maximum danger level – to B of the management of the disease, which put an end to quarantines and most internal measures.

EFE

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