China Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccines hits a combined 100 million doses of supply around the world

[beijingwalker]

China Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccines hits a combined 100 million doses of supply around the world
MARCH 26, 202110:32 PM

BEIJING (Reuters) - Two COVID-19 vaccines developed by subsidiaries of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) have hit a combined 100 million doses of supply around the world, a Sinopharm affiliate said late on Friday.

Over 80 million doses of the two vaccines were administered, China National Biotec Group Company (CNBG) said on social media.

Sinopharm had said it could reach an annual capacity of 1 billion doses in 2021 and aims to expand capacity to 3 billion doses per year, without specifying the timeframe for the target.

Another Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech said on Monday it had supplied 160 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to 18 countries and regions, including China, with over 70 million shots injected.

The three vaccines, along with a fourth vaccine from CanSino Biologics Inc, have been approved in China for general public use. A fifth vaccine developed by the Institute of Microbiology Chinese Academy of Sciences has gained clearance for limited emergency use.

100 million doses of China Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccines supplied globally

Two COVID-19 vaccines developed by subsidiaries of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) have hit a combined 100 million doses of supply around the world, a Sinopharm affiliate said late on Friday.

www.reuters.com

 

[aliaselin]

Sinovac said its capacity in Feb has reached 0.6 Billion, and will reach 2 Billion before July

 

[beijingwalker]

China's manufacturing might in everything is just unrivaled.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

China leads the way in creating safer world

 

[beijingwalker]

With China breathing down the neck of US, US can no longer wage wars around the world at will, now US dares not to stretch its power too far and too thin with a worthy rival keeps checking it out for weaknesses, so with the rise of China, the world indeed becomes safer and safer.

 

[aziqbal]

'I won’t take it': China struggles to get the world to trust its vaccines

• A volunteer is checked before receiving a COVID-19 vaccine produced by China's Sinopharm during its trial at the Clinical Studies Center of Cayetano Heredia University in Lima on Dec. 9. | AFP-JIJI
• 
  
• 
  
• BY IAIN MARLOW, FASEEH MANGI AND KARI SOO LINDBERG
• BLOOMBERG
• 
  

Of all the developing countries testing China’s COVID-19 vaccines, few are friendlier to Beijing than Pakistan. In the years leading up to the pandemic, China financed nearly $70 billion across the South Asian nation on roads, railways and power stations, and Pakistan now has two Chinese clinical trials under way, with even senior government officials being inoculated.
Yet interviews with people in Karachi, the nation’s biggest city — as well as in other developing nations from Indonesia to Brazil, together with surveys and official comments — show that China has failed to assure the millions of people who may have to rely on its vaccines.


"I won’t take it,” said Farman Ali Shah, a motorcycle driver in Karachi for local ride-hailing app Bykea, as local shops closed early ahead of an 8 p.m. virus-induced curfew. "I don’t trust it.”
That mistrust, and the reliance of dozens of poorer nations on China to inoculate their populations, could set the stage for a major global political headache if citizens offered the Chinese vaccine feel they are being given an inferior product.
China’s vaccines were meant to score a clear diplomatic win for Beijing, shoring up ties with dozens of poorer nations amid an anticipated shortage of Western-developed shots. But there has been little information about how the Chinese versions have fared in final-stage clinical trials, with just the United Arab Emirates and China itself endorsing the vaccines for emergency use so far. Meanwhile, some U.S. and European companies have published data on the safety and efficacy of their shots and started to deploy them.
RELATED STORIES

• China's 'vaccine diplomacy': A global charm offensive
• No ‘negative’ news: How China censored the coronavirus
• She chronicled China’s crisis. Now she is accused of spreading lies.

That uncertainty presents another roadblock in China’s efforts to extend its political influence across Asia, Africa and South America. Through its seven-year-old Belt and Road initiative, Beijing spent billions on loans and projects and cultivated local elites to buttress its political and economic power — efforts that have often backfired because of poor management and heavy-handed implementation. The mistrust was compounded by China’s exports early in the pandemic of subpar tests and personal protective equipment.
"China has a great opportunity to do vaccine diplomacy and distribute a life-saving product,” said Jorge Guajardo, a senior director for McLarty Associates, who was Mexico’s ambassador to China for six years. "In my experience, every time they’ve engaged in diplomacy, they screw it up — they manage to upset the countries on the receiving end of their aid.”
Missteps could undermine President Xi Jinping’s claims that China’s ruling Communist Party has handled the virus better than western democracies. China, which saw the first known cases of COVID-19 a year ago, used its authoritarian system to virtually eliminate the virus, mass testing millions of people when cases emerged, shutting its borders and locking down parts of the country to snuff out infections. That approach has seen China’s economy begin to recover even as countries such as the U.S. and U.K. struggle to control outbreaks.

Engineers work on monkey kidney cells for an experimental COVID-19 vaccine at the Cells Culture Room laboratory at the Sinovac Biotech facilities in Beijing in April. | AFP-JIJI
Bolstered by its virus success, Beijing sparred with the U.S., U.K. and Australia over everything from the origins of the virus to crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. The pain of the pandemic also hardened the stance of the U.S. and China in wider economic disputes, including American efforts to stop countries from adopting the next-generation communications technology of China’s Huawei Technologies Co.
"The key thing I am looking out for is if they come in with offers for a vaccine in exchange for a countries’ commitment to using Huawei 5G telecommunication lines, or to allowing China to invest in key sectors,” said Guajardo. "Given that they have a history of this behavior, it wouldn’t surprise me if they did it again.”
China has made a global effort to reassure governments and populations about the efficacy and safety of its vaccines. In October, a group of ambassadors and diplomats representing 50 African countries toured a Sinopharm Group Co. facility amid a publicity blitz touting China’s promise to deliver vaccines to Africa. "When the coronavirus vaccine completes research and is put into use, we are willing to prioritize benefiting African countries,” said Liu Jingzhen, chairman of Sinopharm.
In response to questions from Bloomberg, China’s Foreign Ministry said Chinese companies developing vaccines strictly comply with the law and clinical trials in the first two phases showed the shots were safe and effective. The Chinese government has administered more than 1 million emergency vaccine doses since July, it said, and "we have haven’t found any serious adverse reactions.”
"China has always attached great importance to the safety and efficacy of vaccines,” the Foreign Ministry said in the statement on Dec. 22.
On China’s side is mathematics. The challenge of manufacturing, distributing and administering billions of doses means many developing nations may have little choice but to use Chinese vaccines for at least part of their populations. Many don’t have enough facilities to store Pfizer Inc.’s shot, which needs to be stored at minus 70 degree Celsius. China has also agreed to supply its vaccine to Covax, a World Health Organization-backed effort to provide a coronavirus vaccine to developing nations. AstraZeneca PLC, the other main Covax partner, is still waiting to gain approval. Britain’s drug regulator could clear its shot for use as early as this week, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A container holding the CoronaVac vaccine arrives from China at Guarulhos International Airport in Guarulhos, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, on Dec. 18. | AFP-JIJI
Ironically, Chinese vaccine-makers were initially at the forefront of the research, but China’s rapid control of the contagion left them scrambling to find places to carry out the vital third-stage clinical trials as U.S. rivals leapt ahead. Chinese companies now have third-phase trials running in at least 16 nations, with state-backed China National Biotec Group Co. testing from Argentina to Morocco; Sinovac Biotech Ltd. enlisting Brazil, Turkey and the Philippines among others; and CanSino Biologics Inc. testing in Pakistan, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
Authorities at Brazil’s Butantan Institute, which is helping conduct clinical trials for the Sinovac vaccine, said on Dec. 23 the shot was more than 50% effective, meeting a minimum standard set by U.S. regulators for emergency authorization of COVID-19 vaccines. It did not provide details, citing Sinovac’s request to reconcile data across different trials. The Brazil trial is Sinovac's biggest so far with some 13,000 participants. A trial in Turkey indicated the vaccine is more than 91% effective, though it's considered inconclusive as it was calculated from only 29 cases, compared with the 170 found in Brazil. Vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna Inc. have produced results well over 90%.
"In a country where the Chinese vaccine is the only one available, you either accept it or not,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. "But when you have choices between different vaccines, people are rational. They’re certainly going to choose Western-made vaccines because they’re the No. 1 choice, the data is already available, and they’re safe. China, so far, they haven’t had any systematic data available.”
CNBG and CanSino didn't respond to Bloomberg’s requests for comment. A spokesman at Sinovac referred to recent news conferences in Beijing where health officials said the inactivated shots undergoing late-stage trials and approved for emergency use have been found to be safe, with only mild side effects, and that there is a mechanism in place to follow up with those who get the shots. A Sinovac spokesman separately said the company could only disclose efficacy data after they are reviewed by Chinese regulators.

A worker inspects syringes of a vaccine for COVID-19 produced by Sinovac at its factory in Beijing in September. | AP
Few places have seen the issue become more politicized than Brazil, South America’s largest economy and the third-most infected country after the U.S. and India.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, known as the "Trump of the Tropics,” has repeatedly attacked "Made in China” vaccines, even as political opponent Joao Doria, governor of Sao Paulo, endorsed the Brazilian-Chinese effort by Sinovac and the Butantan Institute.
"We won’t buy it from China, it’s my decision,” Bolsonaro said in a radio interview in October. "It’s a matter of credibility — there are other vaccines that are more trustworthy.”
The government later backtracked on his statement. On Dec. 21, Doria said Sao Paulo would receive 5.5 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine within days.
Still, a survey by polling institute Datafolha earlier in the month showed that half of Brazilians wouldn’t take the Sinovac-Butantan shot, the highest refusal rate among all the vaccines. Some 36% of respondents said they’d also reject a Russian vaccine, while 23% said they wouldn’t take a U.S. shot.
The politics and public concern translate into hard economics for China’s drugmakers. When Brazil’s Health Ministry delivered a national immunization plan to the Supreme Court, it included a total of 300 million doses from AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Covax, according to the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo. Sinovac’s vaccine wasn’t mentioned.
"Our regulatory agency is going to evaluate the data for efficacy and safety, but this needs to be well communicated to the population,” said Natalia Pasternak Taschner, a microbiologist and founder of Instituto Questao de Ciencia, a Brazilian nonprofit that promotes science in policymaking. "It’s quite a challenge to do so when the president and the federal government are the ones raising issues about the vaccine being made in China.”
China may also be overestimating its ability to simultaneously vaccinate its own 1.4 billion population and meet the demand of hundreds of millions more in populous developing nations, said Huang at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has testified before U.S. congressional committees. CNBG said it is capable of making 1 billion doses of its inactivated vaccines, while Sinovac can produce 600 million doses, based on existing facilities and ones set to be completed soon. CanSino said it could make 200-300 million doses of its viral vector vaccines.
If Chinese vaccines aren’t available, developing nations will turn to other suppliers "and China will lose leverage,” Huang said. "We’re not just talking about the economic loss — diplomatic and strategic gains will also will be undermined.”
For the more than 6 billion people who live in developing nations, access to a vaccine soon could help reverse the devastating economic impact, particularly for the poor and those in the informal economy. Some national leaders are trying to reassure citizens about getting inoculated.
"I will be vaccinated first,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in a statement in mid-December. "This is to give people the trust and confidence that the vaccine we use is safe.” Indonesia has ordered 125.5 million doses from Sinovac, as well as 30 million from Maryland-based Novavax Inc. and is developing 57.6 million of its own shots. It’s also seeking doses from Covax, AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, received the Sinopharm vaccine on Nov. 3. "We wish everyone safety and great health, and we are proud of our teams who have worked relentlessly to make the vaccine available in the UAE,” he wrote on Twitter alongside a photo of him receiving the vaccine. Such official endorsements may be enough to persuade some people to accept any inoculation if it receives approval.
"I would be glad to receive a vaccine, regardless of whether it’s Chinese-made or otherwise, so long as it’s proven to be safe, effective and to have no long-term side effects,” said Francis Chung, a 29-year old finance manager who works for a Malaysian plantation company. "It should also be endorsed by the relevant authorities.”
But many others remain skeptical. A survey in Kenya reinforced the concern that not all vaccines are equal. Africa-focused polling company TIFA Research found that respondents were least likely to take vaccines made in China and Russia, preferring vaccines from the U.K. or U.S.
If global leaders fail to persuade their citizens that all the vaccines they approve for use are equally safe, they could face a backlash among those who believe they are being given a second-rate option. Even in Hong Kong, where China has expanded its grip on power this year, leader Carrie Lam reversed course on Dec. 23 and said residents can choose whether to take the Pfizer, Sinovac or AstraZeneca vaccines.
"Transparency is needed in order to support more general public acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccines,” said Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor in health security at the City University of Hong Kong. "Absent such data, it is all too easy to see a two-tier perception of vaccines emerging.”

 

[beijingwalker]

'I won’t take it': China struggles to get the world to trust its vaccines

• A volunteer is checked before receiving a COVID-19 vaccine produced by China's Sinopharm during its trial at the Clinical Studies Center of Cayetano Heredia University in Lima on Dec. 9. | AFP-JIJI
• 
  
• 
  
• BY IAIN MARLOW, FASEEH MANGI AND KARI SOO LINDBERG
• BLOOMBERG
• 
  

Of all the developing countries testing China’s COVID-19 vaccines, few are friendlier to Beijing than Pakistan. In the years leading up to the pandemic, China financed nearly $70 billion across the South Asian nation on roads, railways and power stations, and Pakistan now has two Chinese clinical trials under way, with even senior government officials being inoculated.
Yet interviews with people in Karachi, the nation’s biggest city — as well as in other developing nations from Indonesia to Brazil, together with surveys and official comments — show that China has failed to assure the millions of people who may have to rely on its vaccines.


"I won’t take it,” said Farman Ali Shah, a motorcycle driver in Karachi for local ride-hailing app Bykea, as local shops closed early ahead of an 8 p.m. virus-induced curfew. "I don’t trust it.”
That mistrust, and the reliance of dozens of poorer nations on China to inoculate their populations, could set the stage for a major global political headache if citizens offered the Chinese vaccine feel they are being given an inferior product.
China’s vaccines were meant to score a clear diplomatic win for Beijing, shoring up ties with dozens of poorer nations amid an anticipated shortage of Western-developed shots. But there has been little information about how the Chinese versions have fared in final-stage clinical trials, with just the United Arab Emirates and China itself endorsing the vaccines for emergency use so far. Meanwhile, some U.S. and European companies have published data on the safety and efficacy of their shots and started to deploy them.
RELATED STORIES

• China's 'vaccine diplomacy': A global charm offensive
• No ‘negative’ news: How China censored the coronavirus
• She chronicled China’s crisis. Now she is accused of spreading lies.

That uncertainty presents another roadblock in China’s efforts to extend its political influence across Asia, Africa and South America. Through its seven-year-old Belt and Road initiative, Beijing spent billions on loans and projects and cultivated local elites to buttress its political and economic power — efforts that have often backfired because of poor management and heavy-handed implementation. The mistrust was compounded by China’s exports early in the pandemic of subpar tests and personal protective equipment.
"China has a great opportunity to do vaccine diplomacy and distribute a life-saving product,” said Jorge Guajardo, a senior director for McLarty Associates, who was Mexico’s ambassador to China for six years. "In my experience, every time they’ve engaged in diplomacy, they screw it up — they manage to upset the countries on the receiving end of their aid.”
Missteps could undermine President Xi Jinping’s claims that China’s ruling Communist Party has handled the virus better than western democracies. China, which saw the first known cases of COVID-19 a year ago, used its authoritarian system to virtually eliminate the virus, mass testing millions of people when cases emerged, shutting its borders and locking down parts of the country to snuff out infections. That approach has seen China’s economy begin to recover even as countries such as the U.S. and U.K. struggle to control outbreaks.

Engineers work on monkey kidney cells for an experimental COVID-19 vaccine at the Cells Culture Room laboratory at the Sinovac Biotech facilities in Beijing in April. | AFP-JIJI
Bolstered by its virus success, Beijing sparred with the U.S., U.K. and Australia over everything from the origins of the virus to crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. The pain of the pandemic also hardened the stance of the U.S. and China in wider economic disputes, including American efforts to stop countries from adopting the next-generation communications technology of China’s Huawei Technologies Co.
"The key thing I am looking out for is if they come in with offers for a vaccine in exchange for a countries’ commitment to using Huawei 5G telecommunication lines, or to allowing China to invest in key sectors,” said Guajardo. "Given that they have a history of this behavior, it wouldn’t surprise me if they did it again.”
China has made a global effort to reassure governments and populations about the efficacy and safety of its vaccines. In October, a group of ambassadors and diplomats representing 50 African countries toured a Sinopharm Group Co. facility amid a publicity blitz touting China’s promise to deliver vaccines to Africa. "When the coronavirus vaccine completes research and is put into use, we are willing to prioritize benefiting African countries,” said Liu Jingzhen, chairman of Sinopharm.
In response to questions from Bloomberg, China’s Foreign Ministry said Chinese companies developing vaccines strictly comply with the law and clinical trials in the first two phases showed the shots were safe and effective. The Chinese government has administered more than 1 million emergency vaccine doses since July, it said, and "we have haven’t found any serious adverse reactions.”
"China has always attached great importance to the safety and efficacy of vaccines,” the Foreign Ministry said in the statement on Dec. 22.
On China’s side is mathematics. The challenge of manufacturing, distributing and administering billions of doses means many developing nations may have little choice but to use Chinese vaccines for at least part of their populations. Many don’t have enough facilities to store Pfizer Inc.’s shot, which needs to be stored at minus 70 degree Celsius. China has also agreed to supply its vaccine to Covax, a World Health Organization-backed effort to provide a coronavirus vaccine to developing nations. AstraZeneca PLC, the other main Covax partner, is still waiting to gain approval. Britain’s drug regulator could clear its shot for use as early as this week, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A container holding the CoronaVac vaccine arrives from China at Guarulhos International Airport in Guarulhos, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, on Dec. 18. | AFP-JIJI
Ironically, Chinese vaccine-makers were initially at the forefront of the research, but China’s rapid control of the contagion left them scrambling to find places to carry out the vital third-stage clinical trials as U.S. rivals leapt ahead. Chinese companies now have third-phase trials running in at least 16 nations, with state-backed China National Biotec Group Co. testing from Argentina to Morocco; Sinovac Biotech Ltd. enlisting Brazil, Turkey and the Philippines among others; and CanSino Biologics Inc. testing in Pakistan, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
Authorities at Brazil’s Butantan Institute, which is helping conduct clinical trials for the Sinovac vaccine, said on Dec. 23 the shot was more than 50% effective, meeting a minimum standard set by U.S. regulators for emergency authorization of COVID-19 vaccines. It did not provide details, citing Sinovac’s request to reconcile data across different trials. The Brazil trial is Sinovac's biggest so far with some 13,000 participants. A trial in Turkey indicated the vaccine is more than 91% effective, though it's considered inconclusive as it was calculated from only 29 cases, compared with the 170 found in Brazil. Vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna Inc. have produced results well over 90%.
"In a country where the Chinese vaccine is the only one available, you either accept it or not,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. "But when you have choices between different vaccines, people are rational. They’re certainly going to choose Western-made vaccines because they’re the No. 1 choice, the data is already available, and they’re safe. China, so far, they haven’t had any systematic data available.”
CNBG and CanSino didn't respond to Bloomberg’s requests for comment. A spokesman at Sinovac referred to recent news conferences in Beijing where health officials said the inactivated shots undergoing late-stage trials and approved for emergency use have been found to be safe, with only mild side effects, and that there is a mechanism in place to follow up with those who get the shots. A Sinovac spokesman separately said the company could only disclose efficacy data after they are reviewed by Chinese regulators.

A worker inspects syringes of a vaccine for COVID-19 produced by Sinovac at its factory in Beijing in September. | AP
Few places have seen the issue become more politicized than Brazil, South America’s largest economy and the third-most infected country after the U.S. and India.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, known as the "Trump of the Tropics,” has repeatedly attacked "Made in China” vaccines, even as political opponent Joao Doria, governor of Sao Paulo, endorsed the Brazilian-Chinese effort by Sinovac and the Butantan Institute.
"We won’t buy it from China, it’s my decision,” Bolsonaro said in a radio interview in October. "It’s a matter of credibility — there are other vaccines that are more trustworthy.”
The government later backtracked on his statement. On Dec. 21, Doria said Sao Paulo would receive 5.5 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine within days.
Still, a survey by polling institute Datafolha earlier in the month showed that half of Brazilians wouldn’t take the Sinovac-Butantan shot, the highest refusal rate among all the vaccines. Some 36% of respondents said they’d also reject a Russian vaccine, while 23% said they wouldn’t take a U.S. shot.
The politics and public concern translate into hard economics for China’s drugmakers. When Brazil’s Health Ministry delivered a national immunization plan to the Supreme Court, it included a total of 300 million doses from AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Covax, according to the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo. Sinovac’s vaccine wasn’t mentioned.
"Our regulatory agency is going to evaluate the data for efficacy and safety, but this needs to be well communicated to the population,” said Natalia Pasternak Taschner, a microbiologist and founder of Instituto Questao de Ciencia, a Brazilian nonprofit that promotes science in policymaking. "It’s quite a challenge to do so when the president and the federal government are the ones raising issues about the vaccine being made in China.”
China may also be overestimating its ability to simultaneously vaccinate its own 1.4 billion population and meet the demand of hundreds of millions more in populous developing nations, said Huang at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has testified before U.S. congressional committees. CNBG said it is capable of making 1 billion doses of its inactivated vaccines, while Sinovac can produce 600 million doses, based on existing facilities and ones set to be completed soon. CanSino said it could make 200-300 million doses of its viral vector vaccines.
If Chinese vaccines aren’t available, developing nations will turn to other suppliers "and China will lose leverage,” Huang said. "We’re not just talking about the economic loss — diplomatic and strategic gains will also will be undermined.”
For the more than 6 billion people who live in developing nations, access to a vaccine soon could help reverse the devastating economic impact, particularly for the poor and those in the informal economy. Some national leaders are trying to reassure citizens about getting inoculated.
"I will be vaccinated first,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in a statement in mid-December. "This is to give people the trust and confidence that the vaccine we use is safe.” Indonesia has ordered 125.5 million doses from Sinovac, as well as 30 million from Maryland-based Novavax Inc. and is developing 57.6 million of its own shots. It’s also seeking doses from Covax, AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, received the Sinopharm vaccine on Nov. 3. "We wish everyone safety and great health, and we are proud of our teams who have worked relentlessly to make the vaccine available in the UAE,” he wrote on Twitter alongside a photo of him receiving the vaccine. Such official endorsements may be enough to persuade some people to accept any inoculation if it receives approval.
"I would be glad to receive a vaccine, regardless of whether it’s Chinese-made or otherwise, so long as it’s proven to be safe, effective and to have no long-term side effects,” said Francis Chung, a 29-year old finance manager who works for a Malaysian plantation company. "It should also be endorsed by the relevant authorities.”
But many others remain skeptical. A survey in Kenya reinforced the concern that not all vaccines are equal. Africa-focused polling company TIFA Research found that respondents were least likely to take vaccines made in China and Russia, preferring vaccines from the U.K. or U.S.
If global leaders fail to persuade their citizens that all the vaccines they approve for use are equally safe, they could face a backlash among those who believe they are being given a second-rate option. Even in Hong Kong, where China has expanded its grip on power this year, leader Carrie Lam reversed course on Dec. 23 and said residents can choose whether to take the Pfizer, Sinovac or AstraZeneca vaccines.
"Transparency is needed in order to support more general public acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccines,” said Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor in health security at the City University of Hong Kong. "Absent such data, it is all too easy to see a two-tier perception of vaccines emerging.”

100 million mean enough people have taken it, including many presidents of different countries.

 

[aziqbal]

Home
Share


Third dose of Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine needed for some in UAE after low immune response
Members of the Indian community in Dubai line up to receive their shot of China's Sinopharm vaccine on Feb. 28. (Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images)
By
Paul Schemm
March 22, 2021 at 9:42 a.m. GMT
DUBAI — A "very small number" of people in the United Arab Emirates are being invited to receive a third shot of the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine after antibody tests indicated they did not have a sufficient immune response following two doses of the Chinese-made vaccine, its distributor confirmed Sunday.
There have also been reports out of China of people being initially unresponsive to the vaccine and requiring additional doses.
Walid Zaher, the chief researcher for G42 Healthcare, which distributes the Sinopharm vaccine in the UAE, told Dubai Eye radio that a study was underway to give some people third doses.
“When some people are found to be not really responsive to the vaccines, which is expected with all vaccines, there was an initiative to approach these people and give them a third shot of the Sinopharm vaccine, which has shown, within the context of the study, to boost their immunity,” he said.
AD

Zaher said anyone with low levels of antibodies after a test could ask their doctor to contact health authorities and an appointment would be made for them to have another dose, but generally it’s the officials that approach the person.
He likened the third shot to a flu booster shot and said the amount of people who need it is a “very small number.” The need for a third shot was first mentioned March 10 to the National newspaper by the spokeswoman for the country’s health sector, Farida al-Hosani.
Squeezed out of the race for Western vaccines, developing countries turn to China
Doctors told the Wall Street Journal there were cases of people with little or no antibody response after two doses of Sinopharm.
The revelations could raise doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccine, which is being widely used around the world as countries scramble to inoculate their populations. Many of the more effective Western-made vaccines have been snapped up by wealthier nations.
AD

The Sinopharm vaccine has a self-reported efficacy rate of 79 percent, which global health experts say is more than adequate, but its data has not been publicly released. In addition to the UAE, the vaccine has been purchased by countries such as Egypt, Cambodia, Senegal and Peru.
In China, over the weekend, medical authorities also announced that a clinical pathologist had become infected with the coronavirus despite being vaccinated weeks earlier. They did not specify which vaccine she had used, but her facility is known to administer the Sinopharm one.
“Perhaps she needs to get a third shot as the two doses of inactivated vaccine had failed to create enough antibodies in her,” Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told state broadcaster China Central Television on Saturday. “Or she is one of the few who happen to be unresponsive to the vaccine.”
AD

The UAE has distinguished itself with an aggressive vaccination program that initially used Sinopharm, which conducted Phase 3 trials in the country, and was later expanded to include Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Russia’s Sputnik V.
Nearly 73 percent of the elderly population and 56 percent of all adults have received at least one vaccine dose, authorities said Saturday.
As of Sunday, everyone in the country is eligible for a vaccine, authorities said, after restricting injections for the past six weeks to those with special needs.
The UAE has the second-highest national vaccination rate in the region after Israel, with more than 7 million doses given to a population of 9 million. The vaccine is free to all citizens and residents.
The UAE saw an explosion of new coronavirus infections in January after tourists from all over the world flocked to Dubai, which had marketed itself as a restriction-free holiday destination.
AD

The number of new daily cases quadrupled to nearly 4,000 in January and only now has dropped down to about 2,000 new cases a day.
Lyric Li in Seoul contributed to this report.

Dubai seemed to have the coronavirus licked. Then it flung open its doors.
Britain bans flights from Dubai — as influencers and TV stars who flocked to the city rush to get home
Rivals Dubai and Abu Dhabi tackle coronavirus in very different ways

 

[beijingwalker]

Home
Share


Third dose of Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine needed for some in UAE after low immune response
Members of the Indian community in Dubai line up to receive their shot of China's Sinopharm vaccine on Feb. 28. (Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images)
By
Paul Schemm
March 22, 2021 at 9:42 a.m. GMT
DUBAI — A "very small number" of people in the United Arab Emirates are being invited to receive a third shot of the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine after antibody tests indicated they did not have a sufficient immune response following two doses of the Chinese-made vaccine, its distributor confirmed Sunday.
There have also been reports out of China of people being initially unresponsive to the vaccine and requiring additional doses.
Walid Zaher, the chief researcher for G42 Healthcare, which distributes the Sinopharm vaccine in the UAE, told Dubai Eye radio that a study was underway to give some people third doses.
“When some people are found to be not really responsive to the vaccines, which is expected with all vaccines, there was an initiative to approach these people and give them a third shot of the Sinopharm vaccine, which has shown, within the context of the study, to boost their immunity,” he said.
AD

Zaher said anyone with low levels of antibodies after a test could ask their doctor to contact health authorities and an appointment would be made for them to have another dose, but generally it’s the officials that approach the person.
He likened the third shot to a flu booster shot and said the amount of people who need it is a “very small number.” The need for a third shot was first mentioned March 10 to the National newspaper by the spokeswoman for the country’s health sector, Farida al-Hosani.
Squeezed out of the race for Western vaccines, developing countries turn to China
Doctors told the Wall Street Journal there were cases of people with little or no antibody response after two doses of Sinopharm.
The revelations could raise doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccine, which is being widely used around the world as countries scramble to inoculate their populations. Many of the more effective Western-made vaccines have been snapped up by wealthier nations.
AD

The Sinopharm vaccine has a self-reported efficacy rate of 79 percent, which global health experts say is more than adequate, but its data has not been publicly released. In addition to the UAE, the vaccine has been purchased by countries such as Egypt, Cambodia, Senegal and Peru.
In China, over the weekend, medical authorities also announced that a clinical pathologist had become infected with the coronavirus despite being vaccinated weeks earlier. They did not specify which vaccine she had used, but her facility is known to administer the Sinopharm one.
“Perhaps she needs to get a third shot as the two doses of inactivated vaccine had failed to create enough antibodies in her,” Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told state broadcaster China Central Television on Saturday. “Or she is one of the few who happen to be unresponsive to the vaccine.”
AD

The UAE has distinguished itself with an aggressive vaccination program that initially used Sinopharm, which conducted Phase 3 trials in the country, and was later expanded to include Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Russia’s Sputnik V.
Nearly 73 percent of the elderly population and 56 percent of all adults have received at least one vaccine dose, authorities said Saturday.
As of Sunday, everyone in the country is eligible for a vaccine, authorities said, after restricting injections for the past six weeks to those with special needs.
The UAE has the second-highest national vaccination rate in the region after Israel, with more than 7 million doses given to a population of 9 million. The vaccine is free to all citizens and residents.
The UAE saw an explosion of new coronavirus infections in January after tourists from all over the world flocked to Dubai, which had marketed itself as a restriction-free holiday destination.
AD

The number of new daily cases quadrupled to nearly 4,000 in January and only now has dropped down to about 2,000 new cases a day.
Lyric Li in Seoul contributed to this report.

Dubai seemed to have the coronavirus licked. Then it flung open its doors.
Britain bans flights from Dubai — as influencers and TV stars who flocked to the city rush to get home
Rivals Dubai and Abu Dhabi tackle coronavirus in very different ways

Western media can keep discrediting Chinese vaccines, but they just can't stop the world keep buying them BIG TIME.

 

[dbc]

Western media can keep discrediting Chinese vaccines, but they just can't stop the world keep buying them BIG TIME.

just 17 countries isn't the world

At least 17 countries have purchased China-produced COVID-19 vaccines - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn

 

[beijingwalker]

just 17 countries isn't the world

At least 17 countries have purchased China-produced COVID-19 vaccines - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn

Jan 14, 2021

 

[dbc]

Jan 14, 2021

so what? the numbers haven't changed much since then.. has it? the burden of proof rests on you. You made the claim "the world keep buying them BIG TIME."

17 countries isn't "BIG TIME" it's less than 10% of the world.

stop acting like an Indian.

 

[beijingwalker]

so what? the numbers haven't changed much since then.. has it? the burden of proof rests on you. You made the claim "the world keep buying them BIG TIME."

17 countries isn't "BIG TIME" it's less than 10% of the world.

stop acting like an Indian.

The world doesn't mean every single country, it's a figure of speech, and 100 million is not a small number. probably bigger than any other providers providing for this world.

 

[dbc]

The world doesn't mean every single country, it's a figure of speech, and 100 million is not a small number. probably bigger than any other providers providing for this world.

not even close...

<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1195971/number-of-covid-19-vaccine-doses-by-manufacturer/" rel="nofollow">
Find more statistics at Statista

 

[beijingwalker]

not even close...

<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1195971/number-of-covid-19-vaccine-doses-by-manufacturer/" rel="nofollow">
Find more statistics at Statista

So China has already provided 100 million, how many have you provided so far around the world？