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A staff member tests samples of the inactivated COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccine production plant of the China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) in Beijing, capital of China, on April 11, 2020. Photo: Xinhua
After the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain is the second country to approve a Chinese vaccine for COVID-19, announcing on Sunday that it has approved a vaccine developed by the China National Biotech Group (CNBG) under the China National Pharmaceutical Group. (Sinopharm).
Analysts said the move will help more countries, especially Americans and Europeans, to break out of political bias and increase their confidence in Chinese vaccines.
Bahrain’s National Health Regulatory Authority approved the vaccine after reviewing data from phase III clinical trials in several countries that showed an efficacy of 86 percent, media reported Sunday.
The vaccine also showed a 99 percent seroconversion rate for neutralizing antibodies and 100 percent effectiveness in preventing moderate and severe cases of the disease, according to media reports.
The figure was the same as that revealed by the UAE a few days ago from a candidate developed by CNBG’s Beijing Biological Products Institute, which the UAE approved on December 9.
Bahrain’s health authorities did not clarify which of the two CNBG vaccines approved, but experts reached by the Global Times guessed it was the one developed by the Beijing institute.
The numbers look good for inactivated virus-based vaccines, experts said.
Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccine expert, told the Global Times on Sunday that it is not surprising that the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have approved a Chinese vaccine while other candidates developed by Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech have only been approved for emergency use in some countries. As inactivated virus-based vaccines are a tried and tested technology and have been proven safe time and time again in other vaccines.
Bahrain earlier this month granted emergency authorization for the Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which is based on mRNA technology, media reported.
Both the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain participated in CNBG’s international phase III clinical trials that began in late June.
By Sept. 14, trials were held in more than 10 countries with nearly 60,000 volunteers, CNBG director Yang Xiaoming said at a forum in Beijing on Saturday.
Photo: Sinopharm
According to Yang, as CNBG’s second-stage production lines are expected to be completed this month, production capacity is estimated to reach 1 billion vaccines by 2021.
Egypt, another country that participated in CNBG’s Phase III international trials, said it is negotiating with the Chinese side on mass production in the country.
These moves show the trust placed in China’s vaccines, and this will encourage more countries, especially Americans and Europeans, to step out of their prejudice and increase their trust in COVID-19 vaccines developed in China, Tao said.
Hungary could receive samples of the coronavirus vaccine from a Chinese manufacturer for testing, a secretary of state at its Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, according to local media.
The country will seek national emergency approval of a Chinese COVID-19 vaccine instead of waiting as usual for a review by the EU’s European Medicines Agency, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on his website Facebook, Reuters reported on Friday.
“Vaccine safety is not a political or ideological issue, but a professional one,” he said. “If the experts make a positive decision, we will immediately begin to draft the contract to import the vaccine.”
Newspaper headline: Bahrain approves CNBG vaccine
