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A staff member takes 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
US drug maker Pfizer said its mRNA vaccine candidate is more than 90 percent effective, while Sinopharm’s inactivated vaccine showed 100 percent efficacy in one case in Mexico – both are promising results and have raised hope. of wider use in the fight against coronavirus, experts said.
Pfizer released limited data, saying an analysis of 94 confirmed cases indicated an efficacy rate of greater than 90 percent, Pfizer said Monday.
Pfizer plans to apply for emergency use to the Pfizer Food and Drug Administration in late November and claimed it can manufacture doses for 15 to 20 million people by the end of the year, the New York Times reported.
Pfizer and German drug maker BioNTech jointly developed the vaccine. Its phase III clinical trial enrolled nearly 44,000 participants.
Pfizer’s announcement caught the world’s attention and was enthusiastically reported by many media outlets, but the Sinopharm vaccine, which has been used in 56,000 people who have traveled abroad, none of whom became infected, was questioned by many media. Westerners when the data were published.
The different reaction revealed the Western media’s double standard on vaccines for China and the United States, aiming to politicize the issue, Chinese experts said.
A vaccine is the key to fighting the spread of the coronavirus. Developing a vaccine is a race against time, and science must follow, a Beijing-based immunologist who asked not to be named told the Global Times on Tuesday.
He said politicizing the vaccine would only harm its development.
Vaccine experts noted that Pfizer’s efficacy data, if accurate, is a promising rate. In fact, it can help demonstrate the credibility of the reported efficacy of China’s Sinopharm vaccine, which was licensed for emergency use and has protected more than 56,000 people who have traveled abroad.
Sinopharm released details of a case at Huawei’s Mexico branch on Friday, where 81 of 99 employees were vaccinated with the vaccine. Ten unvaccinated employees contracted the virus in an outbreak in this office.
The Mexico case alone showed 100 percent efficacy, which has contributed to the evaluation of Sinopharm’s inactivated vaccine candidate, Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccine expert, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Pfizer’s 90 percent was based on phase III clinical trials, while Sinopharm’s was based on observation after emergency use. Although the former is more authoritative, the latter is also a control study, Tao explained, noting that the fact that 56,000 people were not infected could serve as a benchmark for the vaccine’s efficacy.
Ten out of 99 infected is a severe outbreak, showing that the Sinopharm vaccine is very promising, he said.
China has approved three vaccines for urgent use. These have been delivered to high-risk groups, such as medical personnel, diplomats sent to the worst-affected countries, and employees sent abroad under the Belt and Road Initiative.
China is also developing an mRNA vaccine, the method used by Pfizer. Industry experts pointed out that, in theory, mRNA vaccines can stimulate both cellular immunity and antibody immunity, and therefore have better effects than just antibodies.
Tao said China’s inactivated vaccines are suitable for extensive use to protect more people from the coronavirus, while mRNA vaccines, once approved for commercial production, are easier to expand production.
But a major challenge for mRNA vaccines is the temperature requirement for storage: minus 70 ° C for long-term stability compared to 2-8 ° C for most other types of vaccines, Tao noted, ” storage and transportation will be very expensive. “
According to media reports, Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine can be stable for five days at temperatures of 2 to 8 ° C, and its Chinese partner Fosun Pharm is building minus 70 ° C cold storage facilities near airports. and organizing a cold chain to distribute the vaccine to centers in China. .
Pfizer is cooperating with Fosun Pharm and the latter is in charge of matching overseas clinical trial data with domestic data for the vaccine to be approved in China.
While all vaccines race against time to protect human lives from the virus, different technological pathways will be tested in the fight against coronavirus, and mRNA, a newer method used to develop vaccines, could be the future direction of the industry, Tao said. . .
According to Johns Hopkins University, global COVID-19 infections reached 50,913,451 with 1,263,089 deaths as of 8 p.m. Tuesday.
