Gao Fu and Chinese official media earlier questioned the efficacy of mRNA vaccines.
Gough said, “Each person should consider the benefits that mRNA vaccines bring to humanity.” He also said, “We will follow up carefully, not ignore it (mRNA vaccine) because we have several vaccines in hand.” Gough had earlier questioned the mRNA vaccine. Xinhua said in December that Gao could not rule out negative side effects because the vaccine was being administered to healthy people for the first time. Official Chinese media and related research and health blogs have also questioned the Pfizer Fosun vaccine.
The Associated Press reports that Beijing has distributed millions of doses of domestic vaccines to foreign countries, including Chile, Peru, Brazil and other countries that have imported Chinese domestic vaccines, and has questioned the efficacy of the vaccine developed by Pfizer using messenger RNA gene technology through foreign propaganda. Gough said, “It is time to formally consider whether a vaccine developed with a different technology should be used to enhance the immunization process.”
Chinese Communist Party officials did not directly respond to Gao Fu’s statement on Sunday (11). But a Chinese CDC expert, Wang Huaqing, revealed that China is developing an mRNA-based vaccine. He pointed out that “a domestic mRNA vaccine has entered the clinical trial stage.” However, he did not mention a timetable for the launch of the vaccine.
A number of experts said that a hybrid vaccine would help strengthen the effectiveness of the vaccine. A study in the United Kingdom has explored the possibility of mixing the Pfizer Fosun vaccine with the AstraZeneca vaccine developed by Oxford University.
Two major vaccine manufacturers in mainland China, Kexing and Sinopharm, have exported large quantities of inactivated vaccines to 22 countries, including Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary, Brazil and Peru. Earlier, Peruvian media reported that the local phase 3 clinical trials of Sinopharm’s vaccine were only 33% and 11.5% effective, below the 50% threshold set by WHO. In Brazil, the study found that the efficacy rate of Kexin vaccine in local trials was only 50.4%. In contrast, the vaccine developed by Pfizer Fosun reached 97%.
The Associated Press quoted experts as saying that China’s domestic vaccine will not be exported to the United States, Western Europe and Japan, based on a complex approval process.
Kexing spokesman Liu Pecheng said that different results in efficiency did occur, possibly related to the age of the participants, the characteristics of the virus and other factors.
Beijing has not yet approved any other foreign vaccines for use in mainland China, and Gough’s speech did not address whether China would change its strategy, mentioning only mRNA as a research possibility.
Gough said that as of April 2, 2021, more than 34 million Chinese had received two doses of the vaccine, and another 65 million had received their first dose.
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