China’s Sinopharm says its coronavirus vaccine is 79% effective

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Provisional analysis of Phase 3 clinical trials shows that the vaccine is safe and that people who received two doses produced high-level antibodies, according to a statement released Wednesday by Beijing Biological Products Institute Co., a subsidiary of Sinopharm. .

The company said it was seeking formal approval from Chinese regulators to distribute the vaccine to the public.

The coronavirus vaccines developed by Sinopharm have already been administered to hundreds of thousands of people under a controversial emergency use program approved by the Chinese government.

In November, nearly a million people had received the Sinopharm vaccine, according to the company’s president, although he did not specify which of the company’s two vaccines they had received.

Although few details were provided, the statement released on Wednesday says the vaccine meets the standards of the World Health Organization and the Chinese regulator itself, the National Administration of Medical Products.

The Sinopharm vaccine is less effective than those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which have an efficacy rate of approximately 95%. Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is 91% effective.
And the vaccine’s effectiveness rate of 79% is less than the 86% announced by the UAE for the same vaccine on December 9th. Since then, he has approved the vaccine for public use.
The Sinopharm vaccine has a higher efficacy rate than that developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca in the UK, which had an average of 70%. On Wednesday, the UK became the first country to approve this vaccine for public distribution.

One step closer to the mass launch

Sinopharm’s results were announced weeks after its global competitors. And with the lack of details, it is still unclear whether the information provided will be enough to dispel skepticism about the quality of Chinese vaccines.

However, the announcement could still pave the way for the large-scale deployment of the vaccine both in China and globally.

The country aims to inoculate 50 million people with self-produced Covid-19 vaccines ahead of the February Lunar New Year celebrations, a Chinese vaccination expert confirmed to CNN earlier this month.
China has promised millions of coronavirus vaccines to countries around the world. And he is ready to deliver them

China is poised to send hundreds of millions of doses to countries that have conducted last-minute trials for their top vaccine candidates. Chinese leaders have also promised a growing list of priority access to developing countries.

According to analysts, Beijing is using the global campaign as a soft power tool to try to repair any damage to its image since the first misuse of the coronavirus pandemic.

China has five coronavirus candidates from four companies that have passed the Phase 3 clinical trials, the last and most important testing step before applying for regulatory approval. After largely eliminating the spread of coronavirus at its borders, Chinese drug manufacturers had to look for places abroad to test the effectiveness of their vaccines. Together, they have launched phase 3 tests in at least 16 countries.

Both Sinopharm vaccine candidates are undergoing phase 3 testing in 10 countries, mainly in the Middle East and South America.

Sinopharm President Liu Jingzhen said last month that dozens of countries have applied to buy the company’s vaccines. He did not name the countries or detail the amount of doses they proposed, but said CNBG was capable of producing more than a billion doses by 2021.

Compared to Pfizer and Moderna, Sinopharm vaccines do not require freezing temperatures for storage, which greatly facilitates transportation and distribution, especially in developing countries that do not have cold storage capacity.

CNN’s Beijing office helped report.

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