COVID-19: UAE says Chinese vaccine is 86% effective, poses no serious health risks

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Wednesday informed that the Chinese coronavirus vaccine tested in the country is 86 percent effective, saying that the drug does not pose any serious health risks. The UAE reportedly conducted a trial of a Chinese COVID-19 vaccine in September and said that after reviewing the data it can confirm that the vaccine showed 86% efficacy. The vaccine that UAE tested has been developed by the Chinese state-owned biotech firm Sinopharm and has been tested on 30,000 participants from 125 nations. 

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'No serious health risks'

The UAE announced the vaccine to be 86% effective through a state-run WAM news agency, where it said that the country's Health Ministry has reviewed Sinopharm's data. However, it remains unclear whether UAE reviewed data concerning participants from its own country only or from other nations as well. UAE also said that the vaccine does not pose any serious health risks, without detailing if any of the participants suffered from side effects or not. 

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UAE has "officially registered" Sinopharm's vaccine, apparently allowing medical facilities to use it on COVID-19 patients. UAE has said that it will resume all economic activities in the country within a week as it has successfully blocked the spread of the virus.  Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine, which uses the tried and tested process of carrying the killed virus to generate an immune response, has also received approvals in few other countries. The process used by Sinopharm's vaccine is the same that is used for polio immunization. Meanwhile, Pfizer and BioNTech are using less-proven RNA technique to trigger an immune response. 

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Pfizer and BioNTech have already received approval for their vaccine in the United Kingdom, where a vaccination drive by the government has also begun. Pfizer is now seeking approval in the United States and other countries for its vaccine, which it claims to be more than 90 percent effective.

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