China grants conditional approval to Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine with 79% efficacy

Even though several crucial questions remain unanswered, Chinese regulators on December 31 said that the country has approved the first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine developed by Sinopharm, a state-controlled company. The approval came a day after Sinopharm said that its COID-19 vaccine is 79.34% effective and cited interim analysis of Phase 3 clinical trials. The Chinese drugmaker also said that the company has filed an application with the regulators to allow the vaccine for a broad roll-out which has now been granted conditional approval by the government. 

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with the first case being discovered in China, countries across the globe have not only ramped up their production but have also started administering the COVID-19 vaccine by Pfizer-AstraZeneca on citizens. Meanwhile, China has also scaled up its vaccine emergency use programme in recent weeks. As per reports, Zeng Yixin, vice-minister of China’s National Health Commission said in a conference on Thursday that since December 15, it has administered over 3 million vaccine doses on “key groups”. This is also in addition to the 1.5 million doses that Zeng said have been administered on “high-risk groups” by November-end.

Further, among all the citizens inoculated in China, according to the official, less than 0.1% developed a light fever and nearly two people per million witnessed "relative serious adverse reactions" such as allergies. In a statement published on December 30, Sinpharm had said that the interim results show that its COVID-19 vaccine us safe and people who received two doses produced high-level antibodies. However, the company left out key details about the data including trial size, the number of infections in the trial and side effects. 

Read - COVID-19: WHO Chief Asks To Ensure Equal Distribution Of Vaccine 'to Protect The World'

Read - Centre Instructs Airline Operators To Draft SOPs For COVID-19 Vaccine Transportation

China vaccine less effective from Pfizer, Moderna

China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine is comparatively less effective than the ones developed by Pfizer-AstraZeneca and Moderna that have shown an efficacy rate of nearly 95%. Meanwhile, Russia has also said that its Sputnik V is 91% efficient against the highly-infectious disease. Sinopharm’s vaccine efficacy is lower than the 86% announced by the  United Arab Emirates for the same vaccine on December 9.

Read - Mexican Leader: Doctor Cut Line To Get Vaccine

Read - Wisconsin Health System: Worker Deliberately Spoiled Vaccine