Covid-19 vaccine -

SIPA PRESS

  • Six contracts with anti-Covid vaccine manufacturers have been concluded by the European Union, but only three are currently authorized on the Old Continent, BioNTech-Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca.

  • The European Commission has come under fire after major delays in vaccine production and deliveries.

  • The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, showed herself open on Tuesday to an access of Chinese and Russian vaccines to the European market.

With only 2.3% of the population vaccinated and the arrival of more contagious variants, the European Union is still far from seeing the end of the coronavirus epidemic.

The European Commission, criticized after significant delays in vaccine delivery, could allow those from Russia and China to its territory to speed up the vaccination campaign.

So far, the European Union has concluded six contracts with manufacturers of anti-Covid vaccines, but only three (BioNTech-Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca) are currently authorized.

A situation that could soon change.

On Tuesday, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, showed herself open to access for Chinese and Russian vaccines to the European market, on condition that they demonstrate full transparency and submit to the assessment of the European regulator .

20 Minutes

takes stock of these two vaccines.

How do his two Russian and Chinese vaccines work?

Unlike the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, authorized in Europe, the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, named after the first satellite sent into space by the USSR in 1957, does not use the messenger RNA technique.

It is a “viral vector” vaccine, that is to say one which uses adenoviruses, other viruses rendered harmless and adapted to fight Covid-19, as a basis.

The modified virus enters the cells of vaccinated people, who then make a protein typical of Sars-Cov-2, educating their immune system to recognize it.

This method is also used for the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine.

If AstraZeneca's vaccine is based on a single chimpanzee adenovirus, Russian Sputnik V uses two different human adenoviruses for each of the two injections, which would elicit a better immune response, according to its designers.

On the Chinese side, several laboratories have embarked on the vaccine race, the most advanced being those of Sinopharm and CoronaVac, developed by the Sinovac laboratory.

These two products use the same technology, that of the inactivated virus, which consists of an injection into the body of an isolated and inactivated virus in order to make the latter react.

The immune system recognizes the virus and produces defenses in a preventive manner.

This is a very frequently used technology for vaccines (influenza, polio).

What are their efficiency rates?

According to results published Tuesday in the medical journal

The Lancet

and validated by independent experts, the Sputnik V vaccine, which requires two doses and which can be stored in the refrigerator between 2 and 8 ° C, is 91.6% effective.

"It is in our opinion the best vaccine in the world, in terms of efficacy, safety, price and logistics," said Kirill Dmitriev, director of the Russian Sovereign Fund, who participated in the development and development of the vaccine on Tuesday.

These results are comparable to those of the vaccines from Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna, and even better than that of AstraZeneca, whose efficacy is 70% on average.

The Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, which requires two doses 28 days apart and which can be stored like that of Russia, is 79% effective, according to figures communicated by the laboratory.

As for its “little brother”, Sinovac, whose use and storage are the same as Sinopharm, the data are very different depending on the country.

Turkey claimed it was 91.25% effective, higher than the 78% reported by Chile, 65.3% by Indonesia and 50.38% by Brazil.

Are these vaccines already distributed in other countries?

If the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has not yet given the green light, 40,000 doses of Sputnik V arrived on Tuesday in Hungary, the first European country to have authorized it, without waiting for the European Medicines Agency. medication is not pronounced.

In addition to Russia, this vaccine has been approved in 17 countries: former Soviet republics which have remained close such as Belarus and Armenia, allies such as Venezuela and Iran, but also South Korea, Argentina, Algeria, Tunisia or Pakistan and, urgently on Tuesday, Mexico.

In addition to China, where one million people have already received it, Sinopharm's vaccine is administered in Morocco, Algeria and Egypt and also in Hungary.

As for that of Sinovac, already injected to several million people in China, it is also used in Indonesia, Turkey, Chile and Brazil.

Are these two vaccines going to be authorized in Europe?

Faced with delivery delays, and therefore vaccination delays, Europe could authorize Chinese and Russian vaccines, provided they demonstrate total transparency and submit to the assessment of the European regulator.

"Anyone who wants to gain access to the European market must submit to the examination rules" of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday.

"Among the selection criteria", the vaccine manufacturer "must have a production capacity in the EU: the aim is to ensure that we can switch to rapid deliveries on the day the vaccine receives the green light from EMA ”, previously underlined a spokesperson for the European Commission.

Words that echo those of the German Chancellor on the Russian vaccine.

"All those who obtain an authorization from the EMA will be absolutely welcome, I spoke precisely on this point with the Russian president" Vladimir Poutine, said Angela Merkel, Tuesday evening, on the public television ARD.

The German Chancellor has also opened the door to the Chinese vaccine, stressing that a country like "Serbia vaccinates faster" than the rest of Europe "with the Chinese vaccine".

The Russian authorities have applied for registration in the European Union and are awaiting a "first examination in February".

Their fate is in the hands of the European Medicines Agency.

Society

Vaccination: Emmanuel Macron promises a vaccine for "all French people who want it" by the end of the summer

Health

Vaccination: A "terrible mess" ... Rant after Valneva's choice to favor the United Kingdom

  • European Commission

  • Video

  • China

  • EU

  • Russia

  • Vaccine

  • Vaccination

  • Coronavirus

  • Covid 19

  • World