As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, so does the global competition to create a successful vaccine. In January, researchers rushed to sequence the SARS-CoV-2 genome and by March, the first phases of multiple human trials were underway. The past few months have seen a high number of potential vaccines advance through multiple testing stages, with dozens of candidates being tested around the globe.
There have been some setbacks along the way in developing these would-be lifesaving compounds. Last week, Johnson & Johnson temporarily paused its Phase 3 trials — which have since resumed — after a volunteer contracted an unexplained illness. Other companies have seen similar issues of stoppages in development. These suspensions of testing, which can be temporary or permanent depending on results of investigations into any illnesses that arise in participants, have been hailed by health experts as signs that vaccine development is taking place responsibly and according to standard procedure. Proper experimentation, therefore, clearly involves a thorough screening process for adverse reactions in study participants, rather than simply pushing promising vaccine candidates through the pipeline without full approval. Rushing a vaccine toward approval, experts say, could be highly dangerous.
It is worrisome, then, how Russia and China, who have made headlines throughout the year due to their ambitious vaccine research, are advancing through the approval process much more rapidly than what is considered to be safe. Russia has developed a potential vaccine called “Sputnik V” — an ode to the famous Soviet satellite launch during the Space Race — and tens of thousands of Russian volunteers have agreed to be injected even before the completion of Phase 3 trials.
In August, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the vaccine had “passed all the necessary tests” despite Russian scientists’ divergence from traditional, established trial protocol. Putin also said that his daughter had received the injection, and reported that she was “feeling well” after getting the shot. To this date, Mexico, India and Brazil — along with a few other states — have bought the rights to millions of doses of Sputnik V.
Beijing has also blown by proper approval protocols on the way to releasing its vaccine. Sinopharm, a large Chinese pharmaceutical company, has created a shot that has already been distributed to nearly 500,000 people, with tens of thousands more hoping to sign up for an injection.
In addition to the many Chinese citizens who appear to already have been vaccinated with the rapidly tested vaccine, the United Arab Emirates has given “emergency” authorization for certain groups of people to receive experimental vaccines, including teachers, airport workers and government employees. Even the country’s minister of health, Abdulrahman al-Owais, reportedly got a Sinopharm vaccine. Between the UAE and other countries, such as Indonesia and Bahrain, officials have ordered millions of doses of these hastily-made vaccines for possible widespread use.
It is evident that Moscow and Beijing hope to see significant geopolitical benefits from successful and fast rollouts of their vaccine candidates, especially as vaccines from U.S.-based and European companies continue to advance — albeit some still faster than normal — along the traditional pathway of vaccine development and approval. In examples of such efforts, Putin offered a free dose of Sputnik V to United Nations staff. Further, China has aggressively engaged in what has been called “vaccine diplomacy,” a practice of using the development of vaccines to augment a country’s standing in the world. China has worked toward strengthening ties with countries around the globe, including those countries with U.S. ties. By being the first to produce an effective vaccine, the two governments will aim to show that their countries, under authoritarian leadership styles, will have stepped up to lead in place of the U.S. and its allies. This threat alone could have dangerous, destabilizing consequences for a world that has already seen unprecedented public health chaos in recent months.
Yet another dire global threat comes from the quick and large-scale distribution of Russia and China’s experimental vaccines. While states may look to a quick fix for rising infection numbers, thus sparing their overwhelmed health care systems, these hastily-assembled concoctions may prove to do more harm than good in the fight against COVID-19. While representatives of the two countries’ vaccine efforts have downplayed domestic and foreign concern over their candidates, U.S. health experts have stressed the necessity of a thorough experimentation process.
If Phase 3 clinical trials are not completed, officials say, a vaccine-maker cannot receive accurate and detailed data as to whether or not the vaccine actually works, or if it could be proved to cause various levels of side effects. Testing with a placebo group is also done to measure the difference in outcomes for many willing participants. It is possible that millions of people around the world have already received, or are scheduled to receive, a dose of a “vaccine” that not only could fail to protect them from the coronavirus but could itself make them seriously ill.
In their premature approval and spread of these possibly haphazard shots, China and Russia may be putting the world in extreme danger. For the chance of scoring a few diplomatic points over the West by making the first vaccines, President Xi Jinping and Putin are risking countless lives, including their own citizens’. American and European medical and pharmaceutical professionals are right to criticize the incomplete processes employed by Beijing and Moscow as they remain vigilant and diligent in their own development efforts. Nations around the world must be made aware of the risk of these seemingly quick solutions to COVID-19, and China and Russia must put their ambitions aside for the good of those they claim to be saving from the virus.
Noah Ente can be reached at noahente@umich.edu.
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