RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Chinese biopharmaceutical Sinovac Biotech, manufacturer of one of the most administered vaccines against covid-19 in several Latin American countries, began the construction of its first packaging plant in the region this Thursday in Santiago de Chile.
With a capacity to fill and package 50 million doses per year, the plant will be ready before 2023 and will require an investment of US$100 million, according to company sources at a massive opening ceremony.
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“Sinovac will dedicate itself to investment and scientific research in Chile (…) to improve production that allows more people in South America to have access to vaccines,” said the CEO of the Chinese company, Weidong Yin, in a virtual intervention.
The plant, with a surface area of 22,000 meters, will package vials against covid-19, hepatitis A and influenza, biochemist Virginia Garretón, vice president of corporate affairs at Sinovac Biotech Chile, told Efe.
“The vaccines are manufactured in China with the original inactivated virus, they are sent to the filling plants and here they are packed under high security conditions for distribution,” she explained.
SINOVAC IN LATIN AMERICA
The Minister of Science, the immunologist Flavio Salazar, told Efe that the installation of this plant seeks to “turn Chile into a pole for the distribution of vaccines at the Latin American level.”
“The centralization in the production of vaccines causes a great inequality of their distribution in case of emergencies such as covid-19,” he pointed out.
The idea is to be able to move towards the “creation of connected systems to articulate regional responses and promote Latin American integration.”
“We are already working on this with Argentina, Mexico and Brazil,” he said.
This week, Sinovac also announced that it will allocate another US$100 million for the construction of a vaccine production plant in Bogotá, in a 10-year project that will start in 2023.
THE ROLE OF CHILEAN SCIENTISTS
The CoronaVac serum, Sinovac’s vaccine against covid-19, is the majority in Chile and is also present in Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil.
Until in June 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) approved it for emergency use, the only reliable studies that had emerged on its effectiveness and efficiency were those carried out by the University of Chile and the Chilean Government.
The investigation determined that CoronaVac has an efficacy to stop infections of 65.3%, compared to 95% for Pfizer/BioNTech and 80% for AstraZeneca.
Weidong Yin thanked the Chilean scientists for their clinical application of the vaccine and said that the cooperation with the Chinese researchers had been “successful.”
“They have made it possible for CoronaVac to have a greater global influence. The results of their research are of great help to the WHO and the formulation of strategies in many countries,” said the CEO of the company, headquartered in Beijing.
Thanks to the massive distribution of CoronaVac, Chile was at the forefront of immunization in the region, with more than 93% of the population with its complete schedule and more than 80% with a booster dose.