Yunnan plugs into high-tech era

Vaccine breakthrough

On a Wednesday morning in 1984, 2-month-old Zhang Limei was fed a small red piece of sugar, a traditional oral polio vaccine.

She enjoyed the sugar very much and cried for another one. Zhang now plans to have a second baby, but there may be no need for it to eat the sugary polio vaccine. It is being replaced by a new safer vaccine made by the Institute of Medical Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

Polio, a highly infectious viral disease that mainly affects young children, causes paralysis in a small number of cases. It can only be prevented by immunization.

Chinese people have been taking oral polio vaccine, four sugar balls for a whole immune cycle, since the 1960s. It helps build an effective immune system but has two potential side effects - about two or three out of every one million babies will suffer permanent paralysis after taking it. More dangerously, the live virus used in the pill may lead to secondary transmission through excretion, allowing the virus to possibly turn into another new and threatening one.

According to Sun Mingbo, director of the institute's Production Management Department, a new injection vaccine tested on a cell which is very similar to human cells will be available in China next year.

"It is the leading technology in the world, which prevents all the risks that pills or other injection vaccines may have," Sun said.

The institute is building its factory in the Chenggong New Zone, in the city's high-tech industrial zone.

The factory, due for completion next year, is expected to have an initial annual output of 6 million doses of the new vaccine. The figure is due to surpass 20 million by the end of 2014.

Compared with imported injection vaccine priced at about 500 yuan ($78) for a whole cycle, the new vaccine will cost 120 yuan.

"Production will be sufficient for the 15 million newborn babies in China every year," he said.

And the institute will also apply for World Health Organization certification in the near future.

"No vaccine producers in China have so far received this certification, which permits overseas exports without clinical tests. After receiving it, we will be able to export a great deal of polio vaccine to neighboring countries, where the disease remains active," Sun said.

"As a result, Kunming will be making a remarkable achievement in terms of human health."

Contact the writers at wanghao@chinadaily.com.cn and yangwanli@chinadaily.com.cn