I think WHO automatically approves whatever FDA or its EU counterpart approves. Everything else goes through the whole process.
Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)
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I think WHO automatically approves whatever FDA or its EU counterpart approves. Everything else goes through the whole process.
Both Sinopharm, Sinovac, and Cansino have applied for WHO. However, WHO has a special fast-track process for vaccines that are approved by the US FDA and EU EMA. Since Chinese vaccines don't have a fast-track process for approval, it would take much longer and go through the whole process.
Sinopharm is in the final process for gaining approval and earliest would be in March. Sinovac probably would take two to three weeks more. CanSino would probably be in April or May before getting approved.
To the extent possible, it would be helpful to reallocate Sinovac's production facilities to just produce the Sinopharm vaccine. Sinopharm's variant has efficacy of around 79%-86% whereas there are now three numbers for Sinovac (51%, 65%, 91%). The technologies are similar enough. Sinopharm does seem to have an edge up right now in getting orders from other countries too, and is giving Pfizer and Astra-zeneca a run for their money.
Sinopharm is a state owned company and Sinovac is a private company. Doubtful Sinovac would want to be just a manufacture for Sinopharm shots. Beside Sinovac already secured major contracts with Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey for over 300 millions doses by allowing them packing and filling the vaccine doses themselves.
If Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey are making Sinovac vaccines themselves, that would mean Sinovac has even more capacity to ramp up their production in China itself.
Except for the few millions doses at the beginning, Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey would get the raw materials to produce licensed Sinovac vaccines. Sinovac has one facility for 500 millions doses per year and another new facility that would eventually ramp up production for another 500 millions doses per year.
At the moment, Sinovac is already able to produce over 1 billion doses per year in the form of bulk ingredient but its filling and packaging ability has lagged. So the bottleneck is the production facility not bulk ingredient production. I would say 1 billions doses is what we would get from Sinovac from domestic production unless it builds more production lines.