China has blamed India for meddling in the trials for Chinese Covid-19 vaccine Sinovac that have been halted in Bangladesh last year. China said that India has torpedoed Beijing’s efforts to push its vaccine in Dhaka and ran an article in state mouthpiece The Global Times, outlined how Bangladesh rescinded its decision to allow Covid vaccine trials last October after a last-minute demand by Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech that Dhaka co-fund the trials.
As per the article published in The Global Times, the trials, according to the agreement were sealed in July and were to start in August. As per the initial agreement, Bangladesh did not need to share the cost.
“But the clinical trials were delayed until October due to the Indian government allegedly meddling in the two sides’ cooperation during the period,” the report – one of the many that China’s tightly-controlled media has published to target vaccines made by India and western companies – said.
However, the trials scheduled in August had to be pushed back due to delay in approvals from Dhaka.
The company had, according to this letter seen by Hindustan Times, claimed that it had “reallocated our funds for the trial (in Bangladesh) to trials in other countries, since, at the time, we were uncertain about the ultimate approval of the trial in Bangladesh.”
Sinovac Biotech also claimed that it had requested the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an organisation set up to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases, to fund the trials in Bangladesh but this application was rejected.
“However, we are working on plans to partially rectify the funding situation by the end of October-early November, though we will still require co-funding to complete the entire trial in Bangladesh,” the company said in its letter to Bangladesh’s health minister Zahid Maleque.
“We are not co-funding the trial. That was not in the agreement. They never asked for money when they approached us… As per agreement, they’ll bear all expenses of the trial, they’ll give us 110,000 free vaccines and they’ll share the technology so that our pharmaceutical companies can make the vaccine,” the minister told Reuters on 13 October.
What has now caused problems for China is that India has sent a gift of two million doses of Covishield vaccine to Dhaka on January 21 and at the same time managed to get a commercial contract of 30 million doses with the Pune-based Serum Institute of India.
India’s humanitarian outreach to all its neighbours during this pandemic is seen as a direct challenge over China’s influence in the region which has over the years used debt-trap strategy to gain foothold in many Asian countries.
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