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SHANGHAI: The first local coronavirus case in China since February was a staff worker at a hospital and had received two injections of a vaccine between late January and early February, state media reported on Saturday (March 20).
The patient, identified by her last name Liu, had been working in the quarantine area of a hospital in Xian city since March 4, and was primarily responsible for collecting samples from quarantined people for coronavirus testing, it reported. the Health Times.
The Health Times is listed as a published newspaper in the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party of China.
China had reported the case on Thursday, making it the first locally transmitted case since February 14.
The Health Times, citing a joint group of experts from Shaanxi province, where the city of Xian is located, said that Liu became infected after being accidentally exposed while in the quarantine area of the hospital.
The publication quoted Zeng Guang, former chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as saying that the vaccine’s protection rate is “not 100 percent”, and that it is “relatively safe” rather than ” absolutely safe “. but the public should not doubt domestic vaccines because of this case.
READ: China will issue visas to foreigners who have received the COVID-19 jab made in China
“The efficacy rate of domestic vaccines to prevent serious cases in China is more than 90 percent, and the overall protection rate is more than 70 percent,” Zeng said, adding that coronavirus treatment hospitals are high-risk areas where medical personnel vaccinated. the possibility of infection cannot be ruled out.
Thirty-three staff members working in the quarantine area with Liu had negative nucleic acid test results and underwent centralized medical isolation and observation.
The Health Times did not specify which vaccine Liu had received.
READ: China approves a fourth COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use
China currently has four domestic COVID-19 vaccines for public use, with vaccines manufactured by CanSino Biologics and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, a subsidiary of the China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm), which received approval in February.
They join a vaccine from Sinovac Biotech, also approved last month, and another from Sinopharm’s Beijing unit approved last year.
A fifth vaccine, developed by the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has also been approved for emergency use in China, the institute announced on March 15.
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