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South China morning post
China’s Sinopharm Reports Strong Interim Results for Its Covid-19 Vaccine
A vaccine developed by the China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) has been found to be 79.34 percent effective against Covid-19, based on an interim analysis, the company said. The vaccine was shown to be safe and participants who received the two course doses produced a high level of antibodies against the virus at a rate of 99.52 percent, according to a statement released Wednesday by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, A subsidiary of the company, which also formally submitted a request to China’s regulators for conditional inclusion, few additional details were given, including critical information about how many people tested to arrive at the results, or what data had been analyzed. Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the great stories originating from China. It is in clinical trials in several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Peru, and Argentina. On December 9, the UAE’s health authority said the vaccine had been shown to be 86 percent effective in an interim analysis of late-stage clinical trials. The vaccine has already been approved in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and is among those already used in China under an emergency use authorization program launched in July. Health authorities said earlier this month they were evaluating data. of vaccines that were advanced in the final phase. trials on an ongoing basis, and would publish data to the public ‘on time’ after trials were not blinded. Data for the vaccine candidate from the institute’s sister company, the Wuhan Institute for Biological Products, has yet to be released. As more Covid-19 vaccines approach the finish line, producers face new hurdles. Another Chinese company, Sinovac, has a candidate in human trials in Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia, but the report of its detailed results has been postponed until next month. Turkey’s health authority announced last week that its trial showed this vaccine to be 91.25 percent effective, but the finding was based on preliminary results from a small clinical trial and none of the data has been peer-reviewed. . Shanghai vaccine expert Tao Lina said the efficacy results of the Beijing Institute’s vaccine, which uses conventional inactivated technology involving a killed virus, was lower than most vaccines using the same method, such as polio, hepatitis A or foot-and-mouth disease, however, it was not a bad result against a new virus and industry processes could be improved in time to improve efficiency, he said. “At first, we thought a 70 percent effective vaccine would be good enough, but the high efficacy reported by Moderna and BioNTech set the bar too high and people might be disappointed when comparing the efficacy rates,” he said. The two mRNA vaccines have been shown to be more than 94 percent effective. “The difference in technology means that the mRNA vaccines will be more effective than the inactivated vaccines. It’s like, one shot targets the ammo at the key point, and the other [targets] all the points, so naturally the effect will be weaker. ”But Tao said that the efficacy of the Beijing Institute’s vaccine had passed the approval threshold and its excellent safety data was an important aspect to consider. counts when evaluating different vaccines. According to published data, inactivated Covid-19 vaccines have far fewer and milder adverse events. It is something that must be taken into account when hundreds of millions of people need to be vaccinated, “said the Administration and Supervision of State-owned Assets, which regulates the China National Pharmaceutical Group, the parent company of the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, said in a statement Wednesday that vaccines should be evaluated according to their overall performance and not just a single efficacy parameter. All vaccines approved for emergency use had produced high levels of antibodies that, in theory, could fight coronary artery disease. avirus. He said. How many people need a Covid-19 vaccine to stop its spread? The Sinopharm vaccine also had the advantage of convenient transportation and storage, as well as guaranteed production capacity, he added. “Sinopharm’s inactivated Covid-19 vaccines can be transported and stored between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius (35.6 to 46.4 Fahrenheit) and remain stable for 24 months, which is an obvious advantage. The cold chain involved fits into what is already available in most countries, significantly increasing the accessibility of vaccines, ”the statement said. According to the statement, the production capacity of Sinopharm’s two facilities in Wuhan and Beijing will reach 1 billion doses soon. year, matching the production capacity of other global candidate vaccines. More from the South China Morning Post: * Coronavirus Vaccine Race: How many doses have Asia Pacific countries asked for? * The AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine has achieved a ‘winning formula’ for its efficacy, says CEO * The success of China’s coronavirus increases confidence that its system is the best answer to the country’s challenges Morning Post For the latest South China Morning Post news, download our mobile app. Copyright 2020.
