Published 11:47 IST, August 30th 2020
Canada cancels massive Covid vaccine agreement with China as Xi & co fail to deliver
The Canadian Government on Saturday cancelled its multi-million dollar development agreement with the communist country's leading vaccine candidate
In a massive setback to China, the Canadian Government on Saturday cancelled its multi-million dollar development agreement with the communist country's leading vaccine candidate due to a 'delay in the shipment of drugs.' Issuing an official statement, the Chinese National Research Council said that the opportunity with Canada was 'now over', due to the delay in the shipment of the vaccine dosages to the North American country adding that the NRC would now focus on 'other COVID-19 priorities.'
"The agreement between the NRC and CanSino had been reviewed prior to signature by CanSino's collaborators in the Chinese Government - the Beijing Institute of Technology and the Ministry of Science and Technology - who had provided funding to CanSino," said China's National Research Council.
"Due to the delay in the shipment of the CanSino Covid-19 vaccine candidate doses to Canada and as CanSino has now completed phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials elsewhere, this specific opportunity is over and the NRC is focusing its team and facilities on other Covid-19 priorities," the council said.
Strained ties between Canada & China?
Speculations have however arisen on whether Canada's move was a larger snub to China over its arbitrary detainment of two Canadian nationals which was followed by its decision to halt billions of dollars of agricultural imports. The relations between the two countries have been on a slow decline following the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the founder of Chinese tech giant Huawei on an extradition request of the United States back in 2018.
China's state-sponsored media South China Morning Post reported that the reason for Canada's decision to scrap the deal remained 'unclear' adding that it was not certain on whether it had anything to do with the political tensions between the two countries. CanSino's Ad5-nCoV had been approved by the Canadian government for human testing in the country.
"We are actively pursuing discussions with other partners to collaborate on other vaccine candidates and will announce these collaborations as they are confirmed," said China's National Research Council.
Progress on CanSino's vaccine
On August 18, China had granted its first COVID-19 vaccine patent to CanSino Biologics' vaccine with Chinese media reporting that it had found the adenovirus vector vaccine candidate to found to be 'successful in triggering an immune response' in the first and second stages of clinical trials.
According to Chinese media, the vaccine is yet to complete the third and largest phase of trials before gaining market approval, however, animal studies have demonstrated the vaccine's ability to reduce viral amounts in the lungs thereby inducing immunity. The vaccine candidate has been jointly developed by CanSino Biologics and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology in the Academy of Military Medical Sciences.
Updated 11:48 IST, August 30th 2020