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Singapore
The COVID-19 multi-ministry task force was responding to a question about why Singapore received a shipment of the Sinovac vaccine before it was authorized for use here.
A booth displaying Sinovac Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine is seen in Beijing, China, on September 4, 2020. (File Photo: REUTERS / Tingshu Wang)
SINGAPORE: Advance purchases of COVID-19 vaccines, including Sinovac from China, were made to ensure they can be administered in Singapore as soon as possible, the multidisciplinary COVID-19 working group said at a press conference on Wednesday (March 24) . .
These agreements were made before the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) approved any of the vaccines.
The task force was responding to a question about why the Sinovac vaccine arrived before it was authorized for use here, and whether Singapore was unable to refuse shipment “because it wanted to avoid potentially disrupting Beijing.”
READ: COVID-19 vaccine is now open to Singapore residents aged 45-59
Associate Professor Kenneth Mak, director of medical services at the Ministry of Health (MOH), said purchase agreements were signed with the manufacturers of the vaccines Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Sinovac “sometime last year” before finalization. of your Phase 3 studies.
“The advance purchase agreements included a timeline of when these vaccines will be provided and, based on the timeline, manufacturers would deliver these vaccines to Singapore,” said Assoc Prof Mak.
READ: Singapore Receives Its First Shipment of COVID-19 Vaccine from Sinovac
Singapore received its first shipment of the Sinovac vaccine on February 23. HSA said at the time that Sinovac had begun submitting initial data and was awaiting submission of all the information necessary to carry out its assessment. HSA said Monday that it has begun reviewing data on Sinovac.
Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Wednesday that as part of a contract with a supplier from Sinovac, 200,000 doses were delivered to Singapore.
“We allow delivery to come, but we still do not allow the vaccine to be used, because we have not approved the use,” he said.
DELIVERY ALREADY PLANNED
The HSA had designed a pandemic-specific approval framework that allowed information to be sent to the authority as it became available, rather than waiting until all the data was available. This was “to allow work to start the evaluation process early,” explained Professor Assoc Mak.
“It happened for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that the data was submitted in a timely manner. And that allowed the HSA to grant approval shortly after, or just before these vaccines reached our shores and therefore there is a perception that the approval came and the vaccines were delivered in a short time, “he said.
“In fact, this was based on a time frame that had already been planned and committed under the advance purchase agreements.”
The delivery of the Sinovac vaccines was based on this purchase agreement, he added.
Assoc Prof Mak noted that the Sinovac manufacturer had not submitted a complete package of all the data that was necessary to complete the evaluation process, and that HSA has requested more information.
“Until additional data is submitted, the HSA will not be able to complete its evaluation process and therefore will not be able to give you provisional approval,” he said.
He assured that until such approval is granted and the vaccine has been “fully evaluated, deemed effective and safe,” the Sinovac vaccine will not be used in the Singapore vaccination campaign.
Working group co-chair Lawrence Wong added that Singapore was “making some bets” on some vaccines, acknowledging that some of them may not be effective.
“We wanted to be able to do it early to be relatively early in the queue and be able to get some vaccinations for Singapore, so that was the basis on which we made these advance purchases,” he said. .
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