A Pharmaceutical giant in China has offered Pakistan a collaboration in regards to an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine.
A letter sent to the National Institute of Health, located in Islamabad, by General Manager of China Sinopharm International Corporation Li Can to the NIH Executive Director Major General Prof Dr Aamir Ikram read:
“Sinopharm considers that NIH has the necessary technical expertise and elements for conducting the clinical trial on recruited participants, through a nominated medical institution, under phase I and II protocol requirements and as per clinical trial guidelines.”
“In order to achieve the above objective, we recommend that Sinopharm, HealthBee and NIH enter into a tripartite MoU urgently to plan and commence the implementation of these phase I and II combined clinical trials. This will enable Sinopharm to share more detailed confidential information for approval and planning,”
“We will work in close collaboration with the NIH clinical trial team during the processing for its success as this endeavour is of utmost importance for our countries in accordance with the current pandemic situation.” The letter added, “We hope that a successful clinical trial in Pakistan will make it one of first few countries for the launch of a COVID-19 vaccine.”
While confirming that he had received the letter on Wednesday, Dr Ikram stated that although no action has so far been taken, the collaboration could be “a great thing for Pakistan”.
“We want to increase the trend of clinical trials in the country. There are a number of laws before it can start; it has to be approved by the ethics committee, et al, but we will start when we get the clearance,” he said.
In simpler words, this means that once clinical trials of this Chinese made vaccine have been approved by Pakistani authorities, the two countries will work together to test the vaccine and if it proves to be successful, Pakistan will be one of the first countries to receive it, which is good news all around, as long as China is not using Pakistan as a guinea pig for experimentation.
Good luck to all involved and we hope Pakistan is given the honour of partaking in the making of a successful vaccine.