China should treat coronavirus vaccine data transparency as a matter of science, rather than politics

As Chinese vaccine makers align with best global practices, China’s reputation will be bolstered by the data quality and transparency
China should also work with other countries to establish commonly accepted rules for international travel by fully vaccinated individuals

Zha Daojiong

Published: 1:00am, 15 Jul 2021

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The announcement on July 12 that Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, had signed advance purchase agreements with Sinopharm and Sinovac was a significant marker of progress for China’s vaccine industry.

Prior to that, each Chinese company also made the World Health Organization’s list of Covid-19 vaccines approved for emergency use.

Under the agreements with Gavi, Sinopharm and Sinovac will begin to make 110 million doses immediately available to participants in the Covax Facility.

If necessary, up to 170 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine and up to 380 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine could be distributed via Covax by the first half of 2022.

Covax, an effort to ensure equal vaccine access for developing countries, earlier had its delivery arrangements hampered by delays due to the severity of the Delta variant in manufacturing countries including India; it is now on track to deliver more than 2 billion doses by early 2022.

Although the supply of vaccines remains tight, more than 90 lower-income participants in the programme stand to benefit.

A man receives a dose of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine at a cafe in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, on July 14. China is the world’s largest exporter ofcoronavirus vaccines. Photo: AFP

As the efficacy of Chinese vaccines in the countries that have imported them continues to be questioned, especially in the international media, the purchase agreements are laurels of sorts for the Chinese products and the country’s reputation. But a far greater effort is needed for China to win worldwide recognition.

Even before the announcement, China was already the world’s biggest exporter of Covid-19 vaccines. But the Covax deals are a manifestation of the Chinese leadership’s promise to make the country’s vaccines and other pandemic-related products a global public good.

Still, only the action of delivery will pay political, diplomatic or even geopolitical dividends. China, with its government agencies and vaccine corporations, has much work to do.

First, a deficit in data is a constant theme in international commentary on Chinese vaccines.

While misinformation and even propaganda are at play, it would be self-defeating for China’s diplomats and corporate agents to simply dismiss such concerns as pure bias or conspiracy theory.

As a matter of fact, in the months it took for the Chinese vaccines to be granted the WHO’s emergency use listing, the Chinese companies in question went through a continual process of supplying the data required for examination.

It was a learning experience having to conduct Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials abroad, as China itself quickly ran out of large groups of infected patients.

The countries that agreed to cooperate with China were mainly developing countries too, with public health infrastructure that varies in quality or is inadequate, not to mention the frenzy of pandemic control within the community.

As more inoculation programmes abroad use Chinese vaccines, Chinese vaccine companies must make a greater effort to collect and share medical data after the products are deployed.

In this regard, the essential elements are professionalism – aligning with best practices by established multinational vaccine corporations – and transparency.

Side effects from vaccines are, in a scientific sense, a normal phenomenon, as individuals’ immune responses differ. A vaccine, whether approved by a national regulatory authority or the WHO, still has to face the test posed by new mutations of the virus.

In other words, demand for data transparency is a necessity of medical science. It should by no means be conflated with issues of a geopolitical nature.

In fact, a country’s reputation only stands to be bolstered by transparency in data gathered with the world’s vaccine science communities.

Equally important, communication with a society where side effects from vaccination occur is an art both for the vaccine developer in question and the diplomats of its home country.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, China’s vaccine footprint was small. A willingness to learn and grow is, in and of itself, a virtue.

Second, China needs to make a greater effort to establish, with other countries, commonly accepted rules for international travel by fully vaccinated individuals. Otherwise, the individuals in and outside China who have received Chinese vaccines would be left to face de facto discrimination.

A decision to recognise a vaccine as valid for inbound travel is, by definition, a sovereign matter.

As is true with expert recommendations for vaccine adoption, no international body can substitute for a national authority when it comes to deciding on an arrangement like a vaccine pass system. Globally, vaccine roll-outs are uneven. Politics and even racism are more likely than not to be at play.

On matters like a vaccine passport, a positive development is that more and more countries have come to balance privacy concerns with demands of public health protection.

The idea of digitising personal vaccination records and sharing them across national borders is gaining broader acceptance worldwide.

The new EU Digital Covid-19 Certificate is seen on a smartphone beside a French national passport in Paris, France, on July 1, the day the EU rolled out the certificate allowing quarantine-free travel for those who have received EU-approved vaccines. Photo: Bloomberg

As such, China should work with other country governments by exploring the principles of reciprocity.

There are limits to the authority of international organisations like the WHO, which has repeatedly warned against vaccine discrimination, but to little avail.

This brings us back to the earlier point about vaccine data quality and transparency. There is a shortcut to ensuring non-discriminatory treatment, explicit or implicit, of Chinese vaccines at the world’s border control points: data sharing.

From conversations with professionals in China’s vaccine industry, I have learnt that it is wise and even necessary for China’s public health authorities to elicit international participation in the country’s collection, analysis and publicity of vaccine data.

In short, China’s vaccine industry has the won the endorsement of its international peers with its products.

However, in China’s interests and because of its responsibility to recipients of Chinese vaccines, a greater effort must be made to improve data quality and transparency. This should be undertaken as a task as serious as that of boosting vaccine supply.

Zha Daojiong is a professor in the School of International Studies and Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development at Peking University