The Hong Kong Secretary for Food and health on Thursday (Feb. 18) endorsed Sinovac Biotech Ltd.’s (SVA) New Crown vaccine for emergency use in Hong Kong.
The vaccination program for Hong Kong will also be launched soon, with voluntary appointments available for the five priority groups to be vaccinated in the near future from February 23, and the vaccine will be available from February 26.
Hong Kong Civil Service Secretary Nip Tak-kuen said at a press conference that the five groups include medical institution staff, elderly people over 60 years old (including those over 70 years old who can be accompanied by up to two people for vaccination), elderly and disabled residential staff, staff maintaining essential public services, and cross-border transport, port and harbor staff.
The Secretary for Food and Health, Mr. Chan Siu-chee, said at a press conference on the new vaccination program that all the new vaccines approved by the government for emergency use are considered safe, effective and quality-assured by experts, and that “the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks”.
The first batch of 1 million doses of Kexin vaccine will arrive on Friday. Fosun Pharma’s Fubitai vaccine, in collaboration with Germany‘s BioNTech, was previously licensed for emergency use in Hong Kong, and one million doses of Fubitai vaccine are expected to arrive in Hong Kong by the end of February.
Nie Dequan also said that the government will set up 29 community vaccination centers, five of which will receive the Coxin vaccine and another 24 will receive the Fubatai vaccine, which will be opened gradually in phases.
China has delivered millions of doses of the new crown vaccine produced by China Kexing Biologicals and Sinopharm to the rest of the world, but there are concerns about the vaccine’s effectiveness.
The last phase of clinical trials conducted in Brazil showed that the vaccine produced by Kexing Biologicals was only 50.38 percent effective, nearly 30 percentage points lower than the initial results previously announced. Another trial showed that the vaccine was 100% effective in stopping severe disease, the same as the initial results.
Previously, French President Emmanuel Macron had warned about the transparency of information on China’s new vaccine, and European Commission President von der Leyen had urged Russia and China to “present all the data” if they wanted to develop a vaccine approved by the EU.
In late January, the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Medicine released a survey on “Hong Kong People’s Confidence in the New Coronavirus Vaccine,” which showed that only about 45.9 percent of respondents said they intended to receive the vaccine, a significant drop from the 55 percent-67 percent surveyed between June and November of last year. Respondents’ reasons for not receiving the vaccine included concerns about side effects and questions about the safety of the vaccine.
The Secretary for Food and Health, Mr. Chan Siu-chee, said that although the new crown vaccine to be used in Hong Kong has undergone rigorous clinical testing to determine its safety, the compressed vaccine development cycle means that some rare or unforeseen serious adverse reactions that may occur after mass vaccination cannot be completely ruled out.
“Vaccinated persons should be compensated for unanticipated serious abnormal events related to the vaccine or their vaccination.” She said, “The government will set up a protection fund for serious abnormal events that occur after vaccination with the new crown vaccine. The initial allocation for the relevant PPF is $1 billion.”
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