China's Sinopharm says its coronavirus vaccine is 79% effective
- by Jake Bell
- in Research
- — Dec 31, 2020
More than one million people have already been vaccinated with unapproved vaccines in China under its emergency use programme, including frontline health workers, state-owned enterprise employees and workers planning to travel overseas.
The company, a state-controlled firm called Sinopharm, said that a vaccine candidate made by its Beijing Institute of Biological Products arm had an efficacy rate of 79% based on an interim analysis of Phase 3 trials.
A Chinese drugmaker said Wednesday its coronavirus vaccine was found to be 79.3 per cent effective at preventing infection in preliminary data from the final round of testing, moving Beijing closer to possibly being able to fulfil its pledge to supply other developing countries.
Chen Shifei, the deputy commissioner of the National Medical Products Administration, said at a news conference that the decision had been made the previous night. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly shown doubt about the effectiveness of Chinese company Sinovac's vaccine candidate without citing any evidence, and said Brazilians will not be used as "guinea pigs", reported Al-Jazeera. China has approved two COVID-19 inactivated vaccine candidates for clinical trials, according to the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against the coronavirus Tuesday.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.
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A spokeswoman declined to explain the discrepancy and said detailed results would be released later, without giving a timeline.
"We will also give priority to developing countries for vaccines".
"Most countries' regulatory systems are fairly independent, so receiving approval elsewhere doesn't necessarily guarantee approval in each individual country".
Which countries have approved the Sinopharm vaccine for use?
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"The lack of fully reviewed papers or data published by official institutions makes it hard to comment on the efficacy of the Chinese or Russian vaccines".
The Sinopharm vaccine's results show that it is less effective than others that have been approved in other countries.
Sinopharm is one of at least five Chinese developers that are in a global race to create vaccines for the disease that has killed more than 1.7 million people. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has received authorization in more than 40 countries.
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