Phoenix TV:
When will the vaccines be available for all Chinese people? Thank you.
Zeng Yixin:
The eradication of an infectious disease will ultimately depend on a vaccine. We are planning to reach herd immunity through vaccination and have granted emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines since June. On Dec. 15, we began vaccinating some priority groups with COVID-19 vaccines. This is the first step of our vaccination agenda, which aims to ensure that key groups at high risk of infection are the first to receive inoculation. Once COVID-19 vaccines are approved to enter the market and production capacity has increased, we will vaccinate high-risk groups, namely senior adults and people with underlying conditions, as they are far more likely to suffer severe symptoms after infection. After this, we will vaccinate the general public.
Regarding the issue of how many people should be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, I should point out that the rate could vary depending on the population distribution of each country. Generally, the inoculation rate needs to be over 60 percent to 70 percent to reach herd immunity. The vaccines that we have approved are safe and effective, so I would like to call on the public to get vaccinated on the premise of informed consent and without contraindications. By doing so, we are protecting ourselves, our families, and others, as well as contributing to global pandemic prevention and control. Thank you.
AFP:
What is China's production capacity for COVID-19 vaccines? Thank you.
Mao Junfeng:
Thank you for your question. This question is of great concern to many people. In fact, we, as a competent department of the industry, asked ourselves this question early on. Hence, the MIIT has closely tracked the development of COVID-19 vaccines and accelerated the industrialization of vaccines, following in the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions on advancing the integration of vaccine R&D and the industrialized chain. To this end, we have set up a special work team to ensure the smooth production of the COVID-19 vaccine via numerous means. These include scheduling key enterprises’ production capacity building on a weekly basis and organizing industry and information technology departments in relevant provinces and cities to assign special personnel to contact and serve enterprises so as to accelerate the production capacity building across various technical routes of vaccine development. Meanwhile, the MIIT has also made a comprehensive review of the entire industry and supply chain of COVID-19 vaccines, guiding companies to conduct serious research and analysis on the supply risks of key raw and auxiliary materials, key equipment, consumables, and other important production materials, and make supply and demand connections between upstream and downstream enterprises to ensure the stability of the production supply chain of COVID-19 vaccines.
According to the scheduling, a total of 18 domestic enterprises have started to build their production capacity in accordance with their vaccine research and development progress. So far, three companies, including the Beijing Biological Products Institute and Wuhan Biological Products Institute of China National Biotech Group, and Sinovac, have fulfilled their production capacity building tasks for this year. Their high-biosafety workshops for inactivated COVID-19 vaccines have passed the inspections by multiple departments. In particular, the inactivated vaccine developed by the Beijing Biological Products Institute of China National Biotech Group was approved for conditional market launch yesterday. The company has now launched large-scale production.
While these enterprises carry out large-scale production, the MIIT has also been organizing them to simultaneously expand their production capacities. Therefore, the production capacity is a dynamic and continuously increased process. For other technical routes, production capacity expansion are progressing as scheduled. With the further expansion of the production capacity of the inactivated COVID-19 vaccines as well as the gradual production capacity progress of enterprises engaged in other technical routes, I believe that our production capacity for COVID-19 vaccines is able to meet the demand of mass vaccination in China.
Next, the MIIT will follow the decisions and plans made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council to enhance coordination and cooperation with relevant departments to form policy synergy, further promote expansion of production capacity, and ensure a smooth supply chain for vaccine production to prepare for an organized and guaranteed mass production of COVID-19 vaccines. Thank you.
