News observation： China COVID-19 vaccine accelerates response to mutant strains

CCTV News:China COVID-19 vaccination exceeded 600 million! It continues to be in the state of acceleration. Recently, a series of COVID-19 vaccination data in China have been disclosed one after another. On the whole, China COVID-19 vaccine has high safety, low adverse reaction rate and high vaccination rate. In the face of new challenges brought by mutant strains, authoritative experts said that in every critical moment of the race against the virus, in addition to accelerating the vaccination speed and blocking the spread and variation of the virus, the technical route of inactivated vaccine in China is suitable for quickly responding to mutant strains.

The local epidemic situation in Guangdong is relatively complicated. By combing the epidemic transmission chains in Guangzhou, Foshan and Maoming, we can basically trace back to the earliest confirmed cases reported in Liwan, Guangzhou. Since May 21st, the detected gene sequencing results of infected people are highly homologous, all of which are Covid-19 mutant strains that appear in India with extremely fast transmission speed. However, the infected strains in Shenzhen this round belong to Covid-19 mutant strains found in the UK, and the intergenerational transmission time of the virus is decreasing. Disease control experts say that we are at a critical moment in the race against the virus.

In the face of the emerging mutant strains, authoritative experts said that the existing vaccines can cope with the mutant viruses, and at the same time, people are advised to speed up vaccination.

Shao Yiming, a researcher at China CDC:Mutant strains will reduce the comprehensive antibody of the vaccine by about 10-20 percentage points, so the protection rate of the vaccine is still above 50%, so the existing vaccines can still cope with these mutant viruses, but we say it is very important that everyone should vaccinate quickly, because the mutation of this virus will continue to occur. If we want to stop the mutation and prevent the mutant strains that can escape the immune surveillance of the vaccine, we must stop its spread and give it no chance to continue to change.

According to experts, on the one hand, we should speed up vaccination and stop the spread and mutation of the virus. On the other hand, according to the existing mechanism of vaccine production, vaccine production will also respond quickly if a seriously mutated strain really occurs.

Shao Yiming, a researcher at China CDC:A new generation of vaccine has been studied for these mutant strains, and the technical route of national inactivated vaccine is especially suitable for responding to mutant strains quickly, because we don’t make any changes to the whole vaccine supply, just adjust it at the feeding end, and turn the original early epidemic strain into a mutant strain that threatens us now, so in a production cycle, it is the mutant vaccine that comes out at this end, so people don’t have to worry.

Regarding whether to replenish booster shots after 6 months, experts stressed that the so-called booster shots are to keep the immunity to the virus after the first vaccination, according to the status of immune regression in tracking experiments and according to the proportion of human body’s defense ability to the virus. At present, the most important thing is to complete the first vaccination and establish an immune barrier as soon as possible.

Shao Yiming, a researcher at China CDC:The inoculation amount per day has been maintained at more than 5 million doses for a long time, and it has recently accelerated to more than 10 million doses. It is no problem for our potential to exceed 20 million doses per day. Therefore, it is completely possible to achieve the goal of establishing a group immune barrier by vaccinating according to the current planned rhythm.