CAS-Mérieux Foundation strengthen cooperation to defeat COVID-19 pandemic

"International scientific cooperation has never been more important than it is today", said Professor Zhang Yaping, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), at a special video conference organized by CAS and the Mérieux Foundation on May 7, 2020 in order to discuss the scientific response to COVID-19.

The meeting was planned to share information about COVID-19 and explore potential scientific collaboration opportunities to defeat the virus.

At the start of the epidemic, CAS launched a special COVID-19 Emergency Prevention and Control Project. The combined efforts of 396 teams from CAS, involving over 2,600 researchers, have resulted in significant progress and science-based innovations in COVID-19 prevention and control work.

"CAS scientists isolated the SARS-CoV-2 virus early on in the epidemic and have developed about 18 kits for detecting SARS-CoV-2 in cooperation with diagnostic companies,” said Professor Xu Tao, director-general of the CAS Bureau of Frontier Sciences and Education. “CAS has instigated research on four different types of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines: mRNA, Adenovirus Vector, Recombinant DNA protein and Inactivated viral vaccines. Drugs screened by CAS such as Hydroxychloroquine, Tocilizumab and Tanreqing have been included in China’s National Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines for COVID-19."

Professor Yuan Zhiming, director-general of the Wuhan P4 Laboratory and also president of the CAS Wuhan Branch, said that their laboratory “played an important role in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was the result of early deployment of China and France”. He also emphasized that the vicious accusations and rumors about the origins of the virus were completely unfounded.

Mr Alain Mérieux, president of Fondation Mérieux, said that after four months of a pandemic that has profoundly affected the entire world, it is crucial today to reinforce medical and scientific collaboration between China and France, and also with other countries, because epidemics can only be fought through global and long-term approaches. He congratulated Chinese scientists on their achievements in vaccine and antiviral drug development, which will greatly benefit the Chinese population and also the rest of the world.

Fondation Mérieux will continue to support partnerships like the regional infectious diseases surveillance "Great Mekong project", that is particularly relevant after the COVID-19 crisis.

"I assisted the Wuhan P4 laboratory in carrying out certification work, so that it could continuously meet the updated Chinese and international standards," said Mr René Courcol, international technique expert for quality assurance in the Wuhan P4 Laboratory since 2017. His work towards quality control and biosafety in the laboratory is carried out under the framework of the China-France cooperation agreement on infectious diseases. He pointed out that the laboratory was approved by the China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS).

Mr Tang Hong, director-general of the Institute Pasteur Shanghai (IPS) and Mr Fernando Arenzana-Seisdedos, the co-director, briefed the productive progress of IPS in Sino-French cooperation projects and their research progress in diagnostic testing, antibodies, and vaccines. Relying on the joint support of both sides, IPS has successfully recruited several important international scientists who have been very active in recent research work.

Both sides expressed their hope and support to further strengthen Sino-French scientific exchanges and cooperation, including a joint platform and cooperation in Southeast Asia. "Many projects need to be carried out to achieve a brilliant, positive and useful collaboration between China and France," said Mr Alain Mérieux.