Iraq approves Sinopharm, AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use against COVID-19

On Tuesday, January 19, Iraqi authorities approved the emergency use of coronavirus vaccines by UK-Swedish company AstraZeneca and China's Sinopharm. In a statement, the Iraqi Ministry of Health said, “The National Authority for Drug Selection has approved vaccines by the UK's AstraZeneca and China's Sinopharm for emergency use to fight the coronavirus pandemic.'' Earlier, the ministry had granted permission to use Pfizer vaccine against the deadly virus. 

All that you need to know 

During late December, Chinese regulators approved the first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine developed by Sinopharm, a state-controlled company. The approval came a day after Sinopharm said that its COVID-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. 

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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. 

During the same period, British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca claimed that its vaccine candidate was effective against the new variant of coronavirus, which was recently discovered in the UK and other European nations. Speaking to Sunday Times, the company CEO Pascal Soriot also asserted that researchers have found out the “winning formula” making the jab as effective as rival candidates. The remarks came when British health officials were eyeing approval of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca along with the University of Oxford.

Read: Brazil Approves Emergency Use Of Sinovac And AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccines, Rollout Begins

Partial results suggest that AstraZeneca shot is about 70 per cent effective in preventing coronavirus as compared to 95 per cent efficacy as reported by Pfizer-BioNTech. The UK, which approved the Pfizer-BioNTech candidate on December 2 has already inoculated a considerable amount of its population. The AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine candidate is based on a modified version of adenovirus, a common cold virus. The vector stripped of its disease-causing genes and modified to carry genetic instructions for making the coronavirus spike protein. This prompts the cells to cause an immune response which eventually protects against the SARS-CoV-2.

Read: Pakistan Okays India-manufactured AstraZeneca's Coronavirus Vaccine For 'emergency Use'

Also Read: COVID-19 Vaccine By AstraZeneca To Receive Swiss Approval By This Month: Report

(Image Credits: AP)