(Yicai Global) Aug. 6 -- Sinovac Biotech and Sinopharm said they plan to apply soon to health regulators around the world to conduct clinical studies and gain emergency use authorization for Covid-19 vaccines specifically designed to combat the Delta variant that has already spread to 130 countries and regions.

Sinovac will submit applications for its coronavirus jab against the Gamma and Delta strains, Chairman Yin Weidong told Yicai Global yesterday. China National Biotec Group, the subsidiary of Sinopharm which developed its Covid-19 shot, will make similar submissions for a Delta-targeting vaccine, the unit’s vice president, Zhang Yuntao, said in an interview.

Sinovac successfully isolated the Gamma and Delta variants last December and this April, respectively, and began work on tweaking its inactivated vaccine, CoronaVac. CNBG is also developing an inactivated vaccine against the Delta variant first discovered in India.

“In fact, research on strain replacement for inactivated vaccines has been ongoing,” according to an epidemiologist. “Due to sufficient preparation of preliminary work, strains can be replaced during production at any time after they have been discovered.”

Sinovac has sufficient vaccine production capacity to provide Covid-19 jabs based on different strains at the same time, Yin added.

There was no rush to change the strain of the inactivated vaccine in the first half of this year, simply because it was not clear which variant would become prevalent, the epidemiologist said.

The two Chinese pharmaceutical firms’ existing Covid-19 vaccines already approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization and other countries can still provide some degree of disease prevention and mitigation.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione