The United States and China are locked in a race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, with global influence and the power to inoculate their populations first on the line.
With national economies grinding to a standstill during the pandemic, there is broad global demand for a vaccine. So far, nearly 3 million cases have been identified worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than 207,000 deaths.
China quickly followed the U.S. last month in announcing clinical trials for an experimental vaccine. “We will not be slower than other countries,” said Wang Junzhi, a biological products engineer with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, at a news conference. The previous day, America’s National Institutes of Health announced the start of a 45-person trial that could last into next year.
The vaccine’s development in China has already been militarized. President Xi Jinping demanded faster progress as he visited the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in March. In April, China began enrolling 500 volunteers for phase 2 trials.
Short supply due to manufacturing capacity is a concern since vaccine developers don’t know yet how many doses will have to be administered to be effective.
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In an interview last week, former Trump Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CNBC that he could “of course” envision the U.S. potentially limiting a vaccine to domestic consumption at first. “I could easily see that happening if we were first to develop a vaccine,” ensuring the U.S. has enough to supply its own market before allowing exports, Gottlieb said.
In 2009, when an Australian company was first to develop a single-dose swine flu vaccine, they were required to satisfy domestic needs before they could export orders to the U.S. and elsewhere.
The White House has stressed the contributions made by private companies to the coronavirus response, essential to allay the effects of the virus and the economic fallout. A Department of Health and Human Services review found a lack of preparedness for large-scale domestic manufacturing.
During a March 3 Senate hearing, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, an adviser to the White House on the coronavirus response, said a vaccine could take 12 to 18 months. “If you don’t have the production capacity to make tens and tens of millions of doses, it may take even longer,” he said.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro slammed China for “seeding” the world with the coronavirus while vacuuming up personal protective equipment gear. “Today, China is profiteering, basically, from this situation,” Navarro told Fox News on Monday.
An outspoken China critic, Trump appointed Navarro to work on supply line issues related to the virus response.
Navarro suggested earlier this month that China may have withheld coronavirus data from the U.S. in order to reach a vaccine first.
“One of the reasons that they may not have let us in and given us the data on this virus early is they’re racing to get a vaccine,” Navarro told Fox Business. “And they think this is just a competitive business race. It’s a business proposition so that they can sell the vaccines to the world.”
The same day that Trump contacted a German biotechnology company in an attempt to assure the U.S. supply of a potential vaccine, a Chinese company offered $133.3 million for a stake of another German competitor.
China has publicly framed the race as a competition. A headline in the state-run Xinhua news broadcast that China “is the first to enter Phase 2 clinical trials.” A video published on the state-run CCTV news website in April read “China vs. U.S. – Whose Vaccine With More Hope?”
On Sunday, Gottlieb stressed the need to ramp up production quickly. “The first country to the finish line will be first to restore its economy and global influence. America risks being second.”
