China approves emergency use of Sinovac's Coronavac on children aged 3-17 years

In a major push for China's vaccination, the country has granted approval for emergency use of Sinovac Biotech's CoronaVac vaccine on children aged 3-17 on Friday, as per International reports. Speaking to Chinese media, Sinovac chairman Yin Weidong told that Sinovac has finished phase I and II clinical research on this age group, which proved the vaccine is as safe and efficient as it is for adults. Currently, China which is inoculating all adults above 18 has administered 723.5 million doses as of June 3.

Sinovac approved for use on kids

Yin said that Sinovac has also completed a Phase II clinical trial where participants were injected with a third booster dose after completing two regular shots. Participants saw 10 fold increase in antibody levels compared with previous levels in a week, and 20 fold in half a month. He added that Sinovac still needs to complete longer-term observation of antibody duration before it can make recommendations to authorities about when a third dose should be given. Meanwhile, Sinopharm whose vaccine is similar to Sinovac's has submitted data for clearance in young children.

In April, Sinovac said it recommends longer intervals between two doses to achieve better effectiveness after the country's top CDC official admitted the weakness of Chinese coronavirus vaccines. Liu Peicheng, Spokesperson for Sinovac said that varying levels of effectiveness have been found in different places, possibly due to the age of people in a study, the strain of the virus, and other factors. Sinovac has been found to be 54% effective in Brazil as per researchers compared to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine which has been found to be 97% effective.

As per WHO's website, Sinovac's vaccine - 'CoronaVac'  is an inactivated vaccine that facilitates easy storage requirements and suitable for low-resource settings. WHO which has approved the vaccine, recommends it for use in adults 18 years and older, in a two-dose schedule with a spacing of two to four weeks. Vaccine efficacy results showed that the vaccine prevented symptomatic disease in 51% of those vaccinated and prevented severe COVID-19 and hospitalization in 100% of the studied population.

Vaccine for kids?

Meanwhile, India's indigenous vaccine Covaxin has started its phase-2 trials on kids aged 2-18-year-olds at arious sites, including AIIMS, Delhi, AIIMS, Patna, and Meditrina Institute of Medical Sciences, Nagpur with two doses administered in an interval of 28 days. The company is also expecting approval from World Health Organization (WHO) for Covaxin by the end of the third or fourth quarter. Currently, only US-based vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer are being used to inoculate children.