China has authorized its first vaccine



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On the night of December 30-31, China’s health authorities officially authorized the first coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine was developed by Sinopharm, a state-controlled pharmaceutical company, and according to the limited information available, it would have shown an efficacy of 79 percent, much lower than the first vaccines approved in the West, that is, those developed by Pfizer. -BioNTech and Modern, but exceeding the standards required by the World Health Organization, which required more than 50 percent effectiveness.

Chinese government officials have let guardian that the mass administration will begin “soon”: according to New York Times the goal will be to vaccinate about 50 million people by mid-February, when hundreds of millions of Chinese flock to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

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In fact, the Sinopharm vaccine – which works like the traditional ones: with a version weakened by the coronavirus that teaches the immune system to protect itself from the real one – had already been administered to some segments of the population, including especially government officials, in recent years. months. In November, Sinopharm said that about a million people had already received their vaccine, which at the time was in phase 3 trials. The news fueled doubts and skepticism about the Chinese government’s handling of the pandemic, accused for months of lack of transparency and rather unscrupulous prevention and control practices.

Again, the data available to scientists to evaluate the effectiveness of the Sinopharm vaccine is very little: for example, the number of people who were administered in the different stages of experimentation is not even known, nor what are the main side effects. . “If they want the vaccine to enter the global market, especially in the more developed countries, more information is needed,” he said. Reuters Dong Yan Jin, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong.

In addition to Sinopharm, another state-controlled pharmaceutical company, Sinovac, is also working on a vaccine. More broadly, the Chinese government has promised to produce around 610 million doses of the vaccine by the end of the year and exceed 1 billion by 2021. Several developing countries have relied heavily on the vaccines promised by China, which according to The experts will be used to expand China’s area of ​​influence around the world. Brazil and Indonesia, for example, have already received several million doses of the Sinovac vaccine for use if deemed safe, while Turkey has ordered 50 million doses that Sinovac has committed to deliver in February.



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