Thanks to their extreme efforts, a glimmer of hope for preventing the disease has now appeared on the horizon. According to media reports, as of August 2020, there were 231 vaccine candidates in development. Some 29 vaccine candidates are now in clinical trials. Of them, seven candidates have started phase three, the final stage of testing to get approval. The rest are still in the first or second phase.
The Nikkei Asian Review reported that China has emerged as a leader in coronavirus vaccines. On the one hand, the country has nine vaccine candidates in clinical trials, the most of any country on earth. On the other hand, China has five vaccine candidates in phase three out of the seven candidates in the final stage. Chinese vaccines are expected to be in practical use as early as the next few months.
However, China has already got the coronavirus vaccine that has proved to be effective, safe, and almost ready to go. China said it has been giving experimental coronavirus vaccines to high-risk groups such as medical workers since July under an ‘emergency use’ program. But the country has not disclosed the name of the vaccine.
The good news of potential vaccines developed by China has raised hope to billions of dismayed people on the planet. Because Chinese President Xi Jinping has demonstrated his intention to share the new coronavirus vaccine overseas. The Chinese president has asserted that coronavirus vaccine development and deployment in China, when available, will be made a global public good. This will be China’s contribution to ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries. President Xi came up with the statements while addressing the World Health Organization’s annual meeting last May.
Meanwhile, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has urged China to give his county priority in the supply of the vaccine. Indonesia has already entered an engagement with China to get up to 40 million doses of the vaccine. Indonesia has been conducting the final, phase three, clinical trial for a Chinese vaccine candidate in the West Java provincial capital of Bandung. The trial is taking place with the support of Sinovac, BioPharma, and a team of Indonesian scientists and researchers. Many more nations, especially the members of Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI), are likely to queue up to follow suit of the two ASEAN countries in the very near future.
Bangladesh has also allowed the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) to run the phase three trial of the vaccine of the Chinese company Sinovac. The government and people of Bangladesh have high expectations to get the Chinese vaccine on a priority basis, Just as China has continued its support to Bangladesh for successfully and effectively fighting the pandemic. Because Bangladesh is an important member of the BRI and China is its largest trading and one of the major development partners in the world.
I have reached the conclusion that the potential Chinese vaccines of coronavirus have given hope to billions of the people affected by and vulnerable to the viral disease. Through becoming the first to have a successful vaccine, China has proved its worth in building a community of a shared future for humanity.
The leadership of China has so far put its thoughts of an equal human community into words in the charter of the BRI. They have now stood by their words by declaring the promising coronavirus vaccines as a public good for the entire humanity. It really serves as food for thought for the world to take China on faith, turning a deaf ear to all kinds of propaganda campaigns against China.
The author is the China Correspondent of the Bangladesh Post.