[ad_1]
The Health Ministry said the vaccine results were based on an interim analysis of late-stage clinical trials that the United Arab Emirates began in July, according to the statement released by the state news agency.
“The analysis does not show serious safety concerns,” the statement said, although it does not clarify whether individual participants suffered specific side effects, or how many volunteers received the vaccine or a placebo.
The statement added that the “official registration” of the Covid-19 vaccine is “an important step towards fighting the global pandemic.” The statement did not elaborate on what the official record would entail.
The clinical trials included 31,000 volunteers of 125 nationalities in the UAE, according to the statement. So far, nearly 100,000 people in the Emirates have also received the vaccine as part of a voluntary program, Jamal Al Kaabi, a senior health official in the United Arab Emirates, told CNN.
CNN has reached out to Sinopharm for more details.
In return, many of the host countries have been promised early access to successful vaccines and, in some cases, the technological know-how to manufacture them locally.
In November, Sinopharm Chairman Liu Jingzhen said dozens of countries had applied to buy the company’s vaccines. It did not mention the countries or elaborate on the number of doses they proposed, but said CNBG was capable of producing more than 1 billion doses in 2021.
“China not only has the political will (for its vaccine diplomacy), it also has the strong capacity to make that happen,” Huang said.
Compared to Pfizer and Moderna, most Chinese vaccines do not require subzero temperatures for storage, making transportation and distribution much easier, especially in developing countries that lack cold storage capacity.
Both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines use pieces of genetic material called messenger RNA (mRNA) to drive the body to produce synthetic pieces of the coronavirus and stimulate an immune response, a new technology that has not been used in existing vaccines.
But mRNA is vulnerable to degradation at room temperature. Moderna vaccine should be stored at -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit), or in the refrigerator for up to 30 days, while Pfizer vaccine should be stored at an ultra cold temperature of -75˚C (-103 ˚F) and is used within five days once refrigerated at higher temperatures.
Meanwhile, Sinopharm uses a long-standing approach that has been shown to be effective in other vaccines, such as polio and flu vaccines. Their coronavirus vaccines use an inactivated whole virus to cause the body to develop immunity, and should only be stored at standard refrigerator temperatures of 2 ° C to 8 ° C (36 ° F to 46 ° F). Other Chinese vaccines in production can be kept at similar temperatures.
Information provided by CNN’s Beijing office and Nectar Gan in Hong Kong.
[ad_2]
