The director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said authorities on Saturday are considering mixing COVID-19 vaccines because doses made in the country “do not have very high protection rates” for AP.
Why it’s important: Gao Fu’s statements at a press conference in the southwestern city of Chengdumark mark the first time a Chinese health official has spoken publicly about the low effectiveness of vaccines made in China.
Leading the news: Gao said officials were studying two options designed “to solve the problem that the effectiveness of existing vaccines is not high,” according to the South China Morning Post.
- One is to mix vaccines, known as “sequential immunization,” and the other is to “adjust the dose, dose interval, or increase the number of doses,” the SCMP reports.
The plot: Experts say the vaccine mix can “increase efficacy rates,” AP notes.
- Scientists in the UK are conducting a clinical study on the mixture of COVID-19 vaccines from Oxford-AstraZeneca University and Pfizer-BioNTech.
The big picture: The Chinese government has only approved locally manufactured vaccines for use against the virus.
- Sinopharm announced just before its coronavirus vaccine was approved for use late last year that its vaccine was 79.3% effective, although experts said important data was missing.
- China’s health regulator approved the Sinovac vaccine last February. Several Phase 3 trials in Brazil, Turkey, and Indonesia have shown efficacy rates of 50.38% to 91.25%, notes Shawna Chen of Axios.
Note: Gao said “everyone should consider the benefits” of mRNA vaccines, used by Western drug makers as a tool against the pandemic, but not by their Chinese counterparts, AP reports.
What they say: Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccine expert who attended the Gao press conference, told the SCMP that “the levels of antibodies generated by our vaccines are lower than the mRNA vaccines and the data from efficiency are also lower “.
- It’s a “natural conclusion that our inactivated vaccines and adenovirus vectored vaccines are less effective” than mRNA vaccines, he said.
- But he added: “We don’t have to wait until there is a perfect vaccine.”
By numbers: Gao said about 34 million people had received “the two doses needed for Chinese vaccines and about 65 million had received one,” according to AP.
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Editor’s Note: This article has been updated with new details everywhere.