China Approves Sinovac Vaccine for Broad Use Against Covid-19

It is the second vaccine to be approved for mass vaccination in China, following state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group Co., more commonly known as Sinopharm, which was approved in December. Last year in June, CoronaVac received permission for emergency use in China, which restricted it to use within certain groups of high-risk individuals.

From Latin America to Africa and Asia, many developing countries have pinned their hopes on CoronaVac and other Chinese candidates for vaccinations, as richer countries chase the vaccines developed in the West. CoronaVac can be stored in a regular refrigerator, which can make it cheaper and easier to transport than others that require storage temperatures below the requirement.

In addition to mainland China and Hong Kong, Turkey and Ukraine are among the countries that have reported CoronaVac orders. Brazil has agreed to buy up to 100 million doses, while Turkey has bought 50 million shots.

But CoronaVac is also increasingly investigating its effectiveness, after the drug was found to have a lower effectiveness than originally published in late stages in Brazil – from 78% to about 50% – following pressure from local scientists for the organizers of the trial. to release more data.

Varying numbers from other countries conducting CoronaVac trials have also raised questions about the protection offered by Sinovac’s vaccine. In December, researchers in Turkey said the drug was just over 91% effective, while Indonesian authorities reported an efficiency rate of 65.3% in January from the preliminary results of clinical trials.

Sinovac’s chairman said the results from Turkey, Indonesia and Brazil proved that the vaccine was sufficiently safe and effective.

According to the company, which published details on CoronaVac tests on Saturday, clinical trials in Brazil have shown that the vaccine provides total protection against serious and deadly cases of the coronavirus. Efficiency dropped to 83.7% for patients who suffered less severe cases that still required medical intervention, the company said. For even milder cases, the effectiveness was about 50.7%.

In Turkey, clinical trials have shown that CoronaVac was approximately 91.3% effective, according to Sinovac, without describing the numbers according to the severity of the case. More than 25,000 people outside China participated in CoronaVac clinical trials.

Earlier this week, the scientific journal The Lancet published new figures on CoronaVac tests performed on hundreds of people aged 60 and older in China, as elderly people were not involved in Turkey, Brazil and Indonesia.

It has been shown that the vaccine is safe to use and that it causes antibodies in participants. This suggests that it will be effective for the older age group, although Sinovac will have to perform phase 3 trials on a larger number of people, and probably outside China where the virus is still spreading.

Vaccinations by Sinopharm and Sinovac are currently only approved for use in China for those 59 years of age and older. Chinese authorities have said they will vaccinate the elderly, although they have not yet said when. The state-run Global Times newspaper reports that the results of the early study paved the way for the approval and expansion of the Sinovac vaccine in the elderly group.

The Chinese government, which has actively promoted the country’s vaccines abroad, is also giving shots to less affluent countries, such as Zimbabwe, which, according to Chinese state media, will receive 200,000 doses of Sinopharm’s vaccine. Beijing will also provide 10 million coronavirus vaccines through the Covax initiative, the largest global effort to supply vaccines to poor countries.

—Raffaele Huang and Chao Deng contributed to this article.

Write to Eva Xiao by [email protected]