China so pinch of salt but still good to see actual timeframes on vaccine availability being discussed;
Chinese firm says vaccine ready by the end of the year
Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst
A Chinese pharmaceutical company has announced that it is expecting to have a vaccine by the end of the year.
The chairman of Sinopharm, Liu Jingzhen, has told media that one of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine candidates, currently undergoing Phase III clinical trials on humans in the United Arab Emirates, is expected to be on the market by the end of December.
Mr Liu himself has been injected with two doses of the vaccine, and told Global Times he has so far felt “no side effects”.
China has workshops in the cities of Beijing and Wuhan that are able to produce 120 million and 100 million doses a year respectively, and the vaccine is expected to be priced under 1,000 yuan ($144; £110) for two doses.
There are some concerns in the mainland at the price, with many on the Sina Weibo social media platform saying that it would be unaffordable to rural Chinese. However, given China is currently reporting no domestic cases, only imports, there is limited concern an outbreak would reach smaller, rural communities.
There are more than 200 vaccine candidates currently in development around the world, and more than 20 are at the stage of being used in human clinical trials.