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Employees of the healthcare system in China were vaccinated even before market approval. Authorities have now granted official approval to the state Sinopharm vaccine as the first corona vaccine.
China’s authorities have officially approved the first coronavirus vaccine. The state supervision of medical devices granted a preparation from the state pharmaceutical company Sinopharm a conditional marketing authorization. This could now be used to vaccinate “high-risk groups” against the coronavirus, said Zeng Yixin, deputy director of China’s National Health Commission. The “South China Morning Post” newspaper reported that the vaccination of up to 50 million citizens of the country was planned for the Chinese New Year celebrations in February.
79 percent effectiveness
According to Sinopharm, the vaccine was 79 percent effective in studies. The Pfizer / Biontech and Moderna vaccines have an average effectiveness of 95 and 94 percent, respectively. Unlike these vaccines, the Chinese vaccine does not use genetic engineering. Rather, it is based on the classic method of triggering an immune reaction through killed coronaviruses.
Even before official approval, around 4.5 million doses of vaccines had been administered in China, particularly to employees of the health system or employees of state-owned companies. Several other Chinese vaccine preparations are currently under development. It is true that there have been emergency approvals for vaccines in China since the summer. However, so far there has been no official approval.
Transfer to other countries planned
President Xi Jinping said that his country will develop various vaccines and then distribute them to other countries at low prices. Indonesia and Brazil, the two most populous countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America, respectively, have already entered into supply agreements with China. Pakistan has announced the purchase of 1.2 million units of the Sinopharm vaccine. Other developing countries are also waiting for preparations from China or Russia, as they are not initially used to a large extent in vaccines developed by Western companies such as Biontech / Pfizer or Moderna.
So far there has been a lack of international confidence in the Chinese vaccine, also because few test results have been published. Observers assume that China needs to make more survey data available to gain confidence.
