The rapid development of vaccines against COVID-19 should be a positive, life-saving development. Happening at a speed many in the medical field would have previously thought impossible, these vaccines provide a glimmer of hope that an end to this once-in-a-century pandemic is possible. But instead of national governments and pharmaceutical companies cooperating to vaccinate the world’s population as quickly as possible, other priorities are informing the distribution of vaccines.
Did China develop their own vaccine, or are they buying doses of pfizer/moderna/oxford to donate? It would be a be a big deal if someone could put out a patent-free vaccine like Oxford was planning before the Gates foundation stepped in.
China has vaccines made by SinoVac and CanSino. Their vaccines have lower reported percent effectiveness compared to what Pfizer or Moderna report, and IIRC use more traditional vaccination pathways compared to the RNA vaccines, but hey, more players in the game is good, and China does plan on donating a lot of them primarily to developing countries.
What is the patent situation with those? I’m really ignorant about this, but it seems like patents are playing a big role in keeping the vaccines from developing countries.
I don’t know the details unfortunately.
China has also pledged much of its vaccines to other countries in the global south, since they’ve largely eradicated covid within their borders as of fall last year.