Chinese CG Li Bijian says China working on 15 vaccines with five atop the list
KARACHI – Chinese Consul General Li Bijian has said that Chinese companies are conducting trials of novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines in Pakistan and the Chinese company is planning to set up its production line here in Pakistan in collaboration with its Pakistani partners.
In an exclusive interview with the DiploMag, Li Bijian said that the Covid-19 vaccine trials in Pakistan are going very well and maybe after a few months, Pakistani people may also be benefitting from the Chinese vaccines.
“China always puts Pakistan as our first priority. After the pandemic occurs, both sides have carried out close cooperation in providing protection equipment to each other in a time of difficulty. We have been working together to bring vaccines to our peoples as quickly as possible,” he said.
Li says Pakistanis shall be benefitting from Chinese vaccines within months
The Chinese diplomat said that it is heartening to note that the federal and provincial governments in Pakistan have been doing much better job to deal with the pandemic.
“I am always telling my colleagues that the smart lockdown model of Pakistan is being adopted by many countries. So, if there is a cluster breakout of the pandemic, it’s better to contain the specific affected area,” he said.
Li said the recent outbreak of Covid-19 variant in the United Kingdom (UK) was a concern while the people starting to flying out of London. He said another concern was that some people are not taking the pandemic seriously.
“Perhaps the prolonged lockdowns have made people become indifferent to the pandemic. Even some people in some developed countries don’t care about the pandemic. So that’s a cause of concern,” he observed.
“Even Pakistan is doing a commendable job in controlling the pandemic, but some people also don’t take the disease seriously anymore, perhaps due to low mortality and infection rate. Perhaps, your population is younger and this virus is mainly targeting senior citizens,” he said.
China working on 15 Covid-19 vaccines
Li Bijian said that in such situations, vaccine is the best remedy and China has been developing 15 vaccines to help defeat the pandemic.
“The world is pinning great hope on vaccines to terminate the pandemic and China has made great efforts in developing vaccines. We started developing vaccines since early stages of the pandemic. 15 vaccines with five technical lines in China have so far developed and started clinical trials, and five vaccines among the fifteen have entered III clinical and final trials,” he said and added that the safety of the Chinese vaccines turns out to be very good.
“So far more than one million people in China especially those front-line workers in hospitals, community centers, transportation facilities etc. have received vaccines for emergency use. According to the data, the effectiveness and safety of the Chinese vaccines are excellent, and the side effects are the mildest,” he said.
Asked about trials in Pakistan, Li Bijian said trials in Pakistan started in August 2019.
“The vaccine developed by SinoVac has been undertaking the III clinical trials in Pakistan in collaboration with the relevant governmental agencies and business agents since August this year. The trial has been going very smooth, and the effectiveness and safety are performing very well. Although I cannot precisely predict when vaccines will be widely available in Pakistan, I am confident that Chinese vaccines will be ready in a short period of time considering the many encouraging news,” he said.
Asked about China’s cooperation with other countries in the vaccine development, Li Bijian said that China has been conducting extensive cooperation with some countries.
“SinoVac and Sinopharm, the key developers of Covid19 vaccines in China have signed a number of agreements to provide vaccines for some countries including UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico etc,” he said.
“Chinese President Xi Jinping said, China will provide support to developing countries and strive to make Chinese vaccines become accessible and affordable public goods for the world, especially for the developing countries,” he concluded.
