On the 15th, during the Lunar New Year holidays, Chinese visitors are looking through the windows of a monkey cage at the Beijing Zoo. Beijing = Reuters Yonhap News
The seeds of’experimental monkeys’ around the world have dried up. This is the result of the US and China struggling to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19). The United States criticized “China is preventing the development of vaccines by regulating the export of monkeys.” In response, China refuted that “the United States takes over the responsibility by holding the house.” The competition for the vaccine against Corona 19 has spread over the supply and demand of monkeys, and the US, China and China are again blushing.
The start came from the New York Times (NYT) report on the 23rd (local time). NYT said, “As China recently banned the sale of wild animals, the supply shortage of experimental monkeys is intensifying.” “It has disrupted vaccine development and is directly affecting the lives of millions of people.” They even called monkeys’strategic supplies’.
At a zoo in Malaysia, a monkey is looking around a mask. AFP Yonhap News
Monkeys are about 90% identical in DNA to humans. In particular, the biological characteristics of collecting samples from inside the nasal cavity and photographing the inside of the lungs are similar to those of humans, making it the most suitable test subject for the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. Of the 33,818 U.S. imported in 2019, 60% came from China. In the past, the US mainly imported monkeys from India, but in 1978, after the media exposure that “they were used for military experiments,” India stopped exporting, and the dependence on the public became more and more.
Matthew Bailey, president of the National Institute of Biomedical Research, said, “It plans to ask the Biden government to resume export of monkeys.” In the meantime, the price per monkey has risen more than four times from 15,000 yuan (about 256 million won) in 2019 to 62,000 yuan (about 1,066 million won).
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. Reuters Yonhap News
On the other hand, China is in the position that the US offensive is “outrageous.” On January 26, last year, China issued a’Announcement on the Ban on Trade in Wild Animals’ jointly with relevant ministries and asked to stop trade in wild animals until the end of corona protection. At that time, as the number of corona19 confirmed in China increased rapidly, bats were pointed out as the main culprit. China claims that it was not just stopping the export of monkeys, especially the recent ban on animal trade aimed at the United States.
Sinoparm’s COVID-19 vaccine in China. AP Newsis
Accordingly, the US is protesting that the monkey is being abused as a material for “spacing China”. On the 25th, Chinese media such as Observer Network criticized, “The US government is turning its arrow only to China without investing enough funds for the monkey experiment research and not having the facilities necessary for mass breeding.” In the meantime, referring to an article in the past US current affairs magazine Time, which said, “The Amazon rainforest is destroyed because the Chinese eat a lot of meat,” he asked, “When will only China be blamed?”
The same is true that China also lacks experimental monkeys. According to Cheil Jaekyung et al., China’s reserves increased from 40,000 in 2012 to 45,000 today, but last year, 2,700 were insufficient, which caused a problem in the experiment. The deficit is expected to increase by 15% annually.
Beijing= Kwangsoo Kim Correspondent [email protected]
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