This photo taken on Jan 6, 2021 shows the packing line for inactivated COVID-19 vaccines of Sinovac Biotech, a Chinese biopharmaceutical company, in Beijing, capital of China. (ZHANG YUWEI / XINHUA)
Thousands of Australians have signed a petition calling on their government to consider importing Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines to boost the country’s vaccination program.
As of Sept 15, the online petition had garnered 8,504 signatures.
The petition, which was launched on the website of the Parliament of Australia, earlier this month, will close on Sept 22 and then be considered by the House of Representatives, the lower house of Australia’s bicameral parliament.
China-made vaccines are “safe, effective and efficient and cheaper”, according the petition, noting that the jabs “have been supplied to millions of people around the world already”
The petition was launched to address “the serious COVID-19 epidemic in Australia” and the “shortage of vaccines”.
China-made vaccines are “safe, effective and efficient and cheaper”, according the petition, noting that the jabs “have been supplied to millions of people around the world already”.
The petitioners urged the government to import Chinese vaccines “as soon as possible” to help in Australia’s fight against the virus.
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Australia’s COVID-19 immunization program has come under a great deal of criticism for delays and vaccine shortages.
While no official offer has been made to Australia from China, a spokesperson for the Federal Health Department told China Daily that the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation “continues to consider the emerging evidence on COVID-19 vaccination, including vaccines provided outside of Australia and the protections offered”.
Currently only COVID-19 vaccines registered by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, or TGA — the government’s medicine and therapeutic regulatory agency — are available for use in Australia. They are: AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria, Pfizer’s Cominarty and Moderna’s Spikevax.
But supply has been inadequate, promoting calls for import of China-made jabs. Concerns have been growing recently following new COVID-19 outbreaks due to the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus.
Vaccines made by China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac, which have been approved by the World Health Organization for emergency use, are being used in China and dozens of countries around the world.
The Chinese firms have signed on to the UN-backed global vaccine sharing scheme COVAX to distribute the jabs to poorer countries.
Other vaccines WHO has approved for emergency use are the Moderna and Pfizer–BioNTech shots; as well as those made by Johnson & Johnson and the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca; and a version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine known as Covishield, which is produced by the Serum Institute of India in Pune.
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Bruce Thompson, dean of the School of Health Sciences at Swinburne University of Technology, said: “Supply will always be an issue of the SARS-CoV2 vaccine and anyway we can address that is a good thing”.
SARS-CoV2 refers to the virus that causes the COVID-19 respiratory disease.
Any vaccine that Australia adopts is based on “evidence and the quality of that evidence”, Thompson told China Daily.
The TGA “is excellent and has appropriate processes and criteria that any manufacturer, irrespective of where they come from, has to follow”, the professor said, referring to the regulatory agency.
Adrian Esterman, chair of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of South Australia, said: “With Moderna soon arriving in Australia and Novavax (jabs) coming early next year, we will probably not need more vaccines.”
That said, he noted that when it comes to procurement decisions, political considerations have “unfortunately” come into play.
karlwilson@chinadailyapac.com