Chinese vaccine developer CanSino targets ‘high disease burden’ nations for Covid-19 trials on health care concerns
- The company’s phase three trial of its Ad5-nCoV vaccine candidate is being tested on some 40,000 participants in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Mexico
- The last participant in the trial is expected to get the jab at the end of November, before the tests are wrapped up July 31 next year
“For us to evaluate the effectiveness of a vaccine, we need to find high disease burden areas,” Yu Xuefeng, who is also the co-founder and chief executive officer of the Tianjin-based firm, told the Fortune Global Forum on Tuesday. Such burden was not expected in developed countries, given “their good health care systems,” he said.
The Covid-19 disease has killed 1.17 million since it was first detected in January in Wuhan in central Chinese province of Hubei, the original epicentre of the outbreak. China recorded 42 new cases on Tuesday, of which 20 were imported and 22 were domestic sources in Xinjiang, an autonomous region in northwest China.
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Mexico has the second highest number of cases 901,200 and a death rate of 10 per cent among the four countries, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Analysts say countries like Mexico have shown a willingness to host phase three trials to secure adequate supplies of a vaccine once it is approved and available. According to Oxfam, rich nations which account for only 13 per cent of the population, have bought more than half of the leading vaccine candidates.
