How does the epidemic this winter and will the virus mutation affect vaccines? Zhong Nanshan and Chen Wei with new judgments at the ZGC Forum

 

“This winter and next spring, the COVID-19 epidemic may continue to exist or develop.” Academician Zhong Nanshan gave such prediction of the epidemic development this winter and next spring.

“The virus mutation is with very little impact on the vaccines.” Chen Wei’s conclusion was quickly in favor on the Internet.

“After the Chinese vaccines were approved for emergency use in accordance with laws and regulations, everyone was vaccinated with informed consent. Till now, none of the high-risk exposed people has had serious adverse reactions and no one has been infected.”

 

Zheng Zhongwei, Head of the Vaccine R&D Team of the State Council’s Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism Scientific Research Group, received praise from online and offline audiences for his presentation.

 

This is the hot event of the 2020 ZGC Forum - Global Science and Life Health Parallel Forum.

 

To date, nearly 29 million people have been infected with the death toll of exceeding 900,000. In the face of the severe situation, the global experts were invited by the Global Science and Life Health Parallel Forum to discuss the epidemic, the R&D and the prevention and control of major epidemics.

 

Make authoritative information flood the screen at critical moments:

 

According to Wang Zhigang, the Minister of Ministry of Science and Technology of PRC, 11 vaccines are with clinical trials, including four with Phase III clinical trials. 

 

Make the ZGC Forum convey the significant message:

Academician George Fu Gao, Director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that China has established a National Center for COVID-19 to better respond to the epidemic.

According to Gao, the newly built National Center for COVID-19 would be responsible for collecting viruses and genome sequences, conducting training related to COVID-19 prevention and control and international cooperation, coordinating national activities, and formulating national standards.

 

Make prudential research have its voice in the first place:

Shi Zhengli, Director of Emerging Viruses Group, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, briefed that the intermediate host of the new coronavirus has not been found according to team research, which proves that the virus is very cunning and spreads silently from wild animals to human society.

 

Make working together become a global consensus:

Richard J. Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), called on the epidemic to be a transnational threat that has become a new focus of governments around the world. As a result, the vaccine racism should be abandoned and the international cooperation should be put in the first place so as to ensure a global end to the pandemic.

The Global Science and Life Health Parallel Forum of 2020 ZGC Forum focused on topics such as vaccine and drug R&D, viral etiology and detection reagents, and drug screening and clinical treatment, etc.

In the field, government officials from foreign countries exchanged their experience and practices in fighting the epidemic including Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil and Serbia. Additionally, more “Mr. Keys” participated in the events, who have achieved major strategic results in China’s fight against COVID-19.

 

 

At the forum, Chen Wei briefed the progress of recombinant COVID-19 vaccine R&D. She noted that the team has been conducting evolutionary analysis of the global new coronavirus genome sequences. Till September 2020, more than 100,000 new coronavirus sequences have been uploaded in public databases, including about 60,000 high-quality whole-genome sequences sampled from more than 105 countries and regions on six continents.

The target gene of our recombinant vaccine is the new coronavirus S gene, with a total length of nearly 1300 amino acids. This gene only has a relatively stable single point mutation at the S614 amino acid position. This point mutation is relatively far from the receptor binding domain (RBD) and has limited impact on antigenicity. On September 16, the research results published by the Academician Chen Saijuan’s team showed that the plasma of survivors infected with the unmutated virus had similar neutralizing activity to the mutant virus, meaning that the mutation point was with little effect on the vaccine.

 

 

At the age of 84, Zhong Nanshan again wore the armor and went retrograde in Wuhan this year.

He emphasized on the Forum, “The key to control infection is keeping a distance, wearing a mask, and washing hands”. “This winter and next spring, the new coronavirus will continue to exist and may develop, especially in local areas. I believe that the community-level joint prevention and control in mainland China is still going on. Nucleic acid tests are carried out for all people and close contacts are tracked. At the same time, the positive nucleic acid carriers are isolated. All these are effective measures.”

When talking about treatment, he said that some methods of traditional Chinese medicine are indeed effective through screening in the laboratory. For example, Lianhua Qingwen Capsules can increase the cure rate and the CT improvement rate, but it is not with a significant effect on the negative conversion rate of nucleic acid.