China today Monday increased by one the number of oral treatment options against the Coronavirus with the conditional approval for the use of Azvudine pill produced by Genuine Biotech -a Chinese local pharmaceutical firm, to treat certain adults patients infected with Covid-19.
According to a statement from China’s National Medical Administration, the Azvudine pill, was officially given approval in July of last year 2021 to treat certain HIV-1 virus, after a late-stage clinical trial, shows that 40.4% of patients taking Azvudine pills produced by Henan province-based Genuine Biotech pharmaceutical firm showed improvement in symptoms seven days after first taking the drug, compared with 10.9% in the control group.
An online article from nature.com/articles titled ” when describing the China Azvudine pill for CoronavirusAzvudine is a thymus-homing anti-SARS-CoV-2 drug effective in treating COVID-19 patients” stated that the drug Azvudine (FNC) is a nucleoside analog that inhibits HIV-1 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) and was recently discovered that the FNC agent fights against SARS-CoV-2, and has been taken into Phase III trial for COVID-19 patients.
However, China in February allowed the use of Pfizer’s oral treatment Paxlovid in adults with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 and high risk of progressing to a severe condition after its earlier approval for the use of Lianhuaqingwen capsules, a traditional Chinese medicine-style formula, to alleviate symptoms of COVID-19 such as fever and cough 2020.
Normal type” COVID-19 is a term China uses to refer to coronavirus infections where there are signs of pneumonia, but the patients haven’t reached a severe stage.
The drug Azvudine has been Orally administered in rats and has revealed a substantial thymus-homing feature, with FNC triphosphate (the active form) concentrated in the thymus and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC).
Other Chinese companies developing potential oral COVID-19 treatments include Shanghai Junshi Biosciences and Kintor Pharmaceutical.
The conditional approval of Azvudine by Chinese Authorities is perceived to be in line with China’s vaccine diplomacy which began in July 2020 when the first Chinese vaccine trial outside China commenced in Brazil.
As early as November 2020, China vaccine companies have signed deals with dozens of countries—mostly lower and middle income—to supply them with Chinese-made vaccines and as early as December 21, 2020, Egypt became one of the first countries to accept vaccines from Chinese state-owned vaccine maker Sinopharm.
After the virus was first reported in Wuhan, China in late 2019, China experienced a reputational rollercoaster, garnering international sympathy, as well as accusations of fanning the pandemic by silencing early reports. Since then, Beijing has continued to be dogged by international criticisms that trace the origins of the pandemic to a leak from a Wuhan lab.
Ever since the Coronavirus outbreak was laced on China, it has successfully mitigated its domestic COVID-19 cases, via the launch of a public diplomacy campaign in April 2020 to show the world that China is a global health leader by sending masks, medical teams, and test kits overseas.
This effort has led to Beijing’s resurrection of the Health Silk Road moniker to promote its health leadership and redeem its international image as a natural extension of its mask diplomacy. As China attempted to turn its health crisis into a geopolitical opportunity, its vaccine diplomacy has raised more than a few eyebrows as China’s competitors worry that “where Beijing’s inoculations go, its influence will follow” (Huang 2021).
Vaccine diplomacy has become a source of soft power which China has been utilizing to rebrand its global perspective nation since realizing that discovery of vaccines can help foster a favorable country image and likeability, as “few areas of diplomatic goodwill connect more with the humanitarian nature of international citizenship than medical assistance” (Bier and Arceneaux 2020, para. 9).
