The company has indicated that it can produce 300 million doses per year

The Chinese Sinovac vaccine will be available for mass application in early 2021

photo_camera REUTERS/DADO RUVIC - Vaccine against COVID-19

The president of the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac, Yin Weidong, assured that his vaccine against the coronavirus, one of the most advanced in the world, could begin to be applied massively to the population at the beginning of next year.

During a visit by Efe and other media to the company's laboratories and factory in Beijing, Yin said his factory has the capacity to produce 300 million doses of the vaccine, called CoronaVac, annually.

The company began building a specific factory to produce this coronavirus vaccine in March and has been producing doses for several weeks now.

Yin explained that they tested seven different vaccine methods, but found that "the inactivated vaccine route was the best.

He said that phase 3 trials of the over-18s "have shown no particular adverse reactions," and said his vaccine is capable of "fighting all strains of SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus in the world.

CoronaVac is now being tested in Brazil, Turkey, Bangladesh and Indonesia: "It is better to test abroad because in China the pandemic is practically controlled and it would be difficult to prove its effectiveness here," added the president of Sinovac.

Yin indicated that the possibility that his vaccine could be manufactured in other countries is also being studied.

Sinovac announced on September 9 that results from Phase 1 and 2 trials of its CoronaVac vaccine had shown "good safety and immunogenicity" in healthy adults over 60 years of age as well as in people between 18 and 59 years of age.

Antibody levels in the over-60s were slightly lower than those tested in the younger population, according to the company.

Making the vaccine available to the entire population, including children and adolescents, is one of the keys to preventing outbreaks of the virus in schools and day-care centres.

Sinovac's vaccine, which in Latin America is produced in cooperation with Brazil's Butantan Institute based in Sao Paulo, is in the final phase of large-scale adult trials in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey.

CoronaVac has insured 46 million doses in the South American country up to December and another 16 million by the first quarter of 2012, according to Brazilian authorities.

Nearly 90% of the Chinese pharmaceutical company's employees worldwide and their families have received their doses, according to the company.

Four Chinese vaccines are currently in Phase 3 clinical trials - out of a total of nine worldwide - although one of the remaining five is part of a consortium formed by China's Fosun Pharma, Germany's Biontech and the US's Pfizer.

The four wholly Chinese companies are Sinovac, Sinopharm, the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and Cansino Biologics, which began use at the end of June in the Chinese army.

More in Society