China’s State Drug Administration on Thursday (Dec. 31) approved the launch of Sinopharm’s new inactivated coronavirus vaccine. The new vaccine’s approval facilitates China’s global rollout of its own vaccine, but details of the vaccine’s development still lack transparency.
On Wednesday, China Bio Beijing, a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm, just released phase III clinical data from a phase III clinical trial of the vaccine. The company said the effectiveness of its vaccine was 79.34 percent.
This comes after the UAE this month said it was the first country to approve the use of the vaccine. Pakistan also announced the purchase of 1.2 million doses of the vaccine.
China previously approved at least three vaccines, including the Sinopharm vaccine, for emergency use in July for people at high risk of infection. By Dec. 15, China had vaccinated 4.5 million people. The approval of the Sinopharm vaccine may mean that mass vaccination in China is about to begin.
Although the Chinese vaccine is still not as effective as the Pfizer-BioNTech (Pfizer-BioNTech) and Moderna (Moderna) vaccines, both of which are more than 90% effective, it can be seen as a progress and achievement in vaccine development in China.
However, while Sinopharm provides effectiveness, it lacks data to support this, and does not provide important information on the size of the tested population, or on serious side effects. These data are critical for Chinese vaccines to be recognized and gain a foothold in the developed world. Sinopharm said specific data will be released later and will be published in Chinese and foreign scientific journals.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said he wants to make Chinese vaccines a global public good. Indonesia and Brazil are the largest countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America, respectively. They already intend to buy Chinese vaccines. The Chinese Communist Party uses vaccines as an important means of strengthening relations with developing countries. But some analysts say such a charm offensive could lead to discontent in the United States.
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