Zhong Nanshan: China's vaccine protection rate comparable to Pfizer's

Pfizer Pharmaceuticals said earlier that the Phase III clinical trial of a new coronavirus vaccine jointly developed with BioNTech, a German biotechnology company, showed a protection rate of 90%.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Guangzhou International Biological Forum yesterday (Nov.16), Zhong Nanshan, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said the research and development of vaccines in Guangdong and even China were at a similar level.

It is not easy to put people's lives and health first, Zhong said, as China has managed to control the epidemic, which is still raging abroad. He mentioned that Wuhan is now very safe.

Zhong pointed out that the epidemic pattern has yet to be ascertained, and there is no way to trace the source of the outbreak. There is a shortage of very targeted and effective drugs at this stage, some of which, such as Remdesivir, are only initially effective.

He expected that basic research, clinical research, and industrialization would be more closely integrated to form a better mechanism in biopharmaceuticals.