UAE approves ‘86 per cent effective’ Chinese coronavirus vaccine

[vi-va]

UAE approves ‘86 per cent effective’ Chinese coronavirus vaccine

Josephine Ma
Published: 3:42pm, 9 Dec, 2020
Updated: 11:43am, 10 Dec, 2020
Why you can trust SCMP
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UAE is first government to officially approve Chinese coronavirus vaccine developed by Sinopharm
UAE is first government to officially approve Chinese coronavirus vaccine developed by Sinopharm
The United Arab Emirates has approved a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine, saying it was 86 per cent effective.
Wednesday’s statement issued by the UAE’s health ministry via the official WAM news agency gave few details. It said the ministry had worked with its counterparts in Abu Dhabi to review the interim results from the final stage trials of a vaccine developed by Sinopharm and the Beijing Institute of Biological Products.
The statement said 31,000 volunteers from 125 countries had been involved in the trials. It said the vaccine was 100 per cent effective in preventing moderate and severe cases of the disease and no serious safety concerns were found, though it did not give details of any side effects.
There was no mention of how many infections were found in the vaccinated group and the placebo group.
Sinopharm and its subsidiary responsible for vaccine development, CNBG, has not issued any official statement about its final stage trials. Neither could be reached for comment on Wednesday.
The UAE announcement came a day after the
health authorities in the UK started giving a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to members of the public
and the US Food and Drug administration issued a detailed paper saying the vaccine was safe and effective. The FDA will discuss approval of the vaccine on Thursday.
Tuesday also saw the publication of the first detailed paper about the phase three trials of a drug developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
The data published in The Lancet showed that the Oxford vaccine has a efficacy of 62·1 per cent for recipients of two doses, but was much higher at 90 per cent for a small group, who were given one and a half doses by mistake.
The UAE statement came after Morocco decided on Tuesday to use a Sinopharm vaccine in an ambitious plan to inoculate 80 per cent of its adults starting this month.
“The registration of this vaccine is a decision in response to the application from Sinopharm CNBG. The announcement is a significant vote of confidence by the UAE’s health authorities in the safety and efficacy of this vaccine,” the UAE statement said.
Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccine expert, described the efficacy as “quite good”, adding: “That means if there are 100 infections in the placebo group, there are only 14 infections in the vaccine group.
But he said that it remains unclear what level of antibodies can protect a person from infection as there are infections in the vaccine group although 99 per cent of them have developed antibodies.
The UAE started giving the Sinopharm vaccines to front-line health workers in September after approving its emergency use.
Senior politicians, including Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, have taken the jabs to show confidence in the vaccine.
It remains unclear why Sinopharm, which has two vaccines undergoing final stage trials, has not released its interim data.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma walked back from its earlier
claim that a vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac showed 97 per cent efficacy.
It said that it would have to wait till January for complete data.
On Tuesday, Emer Cooke, the executive director of the European Medicines Agency, told Italian daily La Repubblica that Russia and China had not requested authorisation for their Covid-19 vaccines.
“If they do, we will study the data,” she said.
Cooke also said the agency was not under political pressure to speed up approvals and expected to complete its review of the Pfizer and BioNTEch vaccine by December 29 and to finalise its review of a vaccine from Moderna by January 12.
China has approved three vaccine candidates developed by Sinovac and state-owned Sinopharm for emergency use and given them to over a million people.
Meanwhile, Russia was the first country to grant regulatory approval for a vaccine, but raised safety fears by doing so before large-scale trials were complete.
Additional reporting by Reuters

UAE approves ‘86 per cent effective’ Chinese coronavirus vaccine

Review of Sinopharm’s interim analysis of phase three trials found ‘no serious safety concerns’, health ministry says.

www.scmp.com

UAE approves ‘86 per cent effective’ Chinese coronavirus vaccine

Josephine Ma
Published: 3:42pm, 9 Dec, 2020
Updated: 11:43am, 10 Dec, 2020
Why you can trust SCMP
556
34
UAE is first government to officially approve Chinese coronavirus vaccine developed by Sinopharm
UAE is first government to officially approve Chinese coronavirus vaccine developed by Sinopharm
The United Arab Emirates has approved a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine, saying it was 86 per cent effective.
Wednesday’s statement issued by the UAE’s health ministry via the official WAM news agency gave few details. It said the ministry had worked with its counterparts in Abu Dhabi to review the interim results from the final stage trials of a vaccine developed by Sinopharm and the Beijing Institute of Biological Products.
The statement said 31,000 volunteers from 125 countries had been involved in the trials. It said the vaccine was 100 per cent effective in preventing moderate and severe cases of the disease and no serious safety concerns were found, though it did not give details of any side effects.
There was no mention of how many infections were found in the vaccinated group and the placebo group.
Sinopharm and its subsidiary responsible for vaccine development, CNBG, has not issued any official statement about its final stage trials. Neither could be reached for comment on Wednesday.
The UAE announcement came a day after the
health authorities in the UK started giving a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to members of the public
and the US Food and Drug administration issued a detailed paper saying the vaccine was safe and effective. The FDA will discuss approval of the vaccine on Thursday.
Tuesday also saw the publication of the first detailed paper about the phase three trials of a drug developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
The data published in The Lancet showed that the Oxford vaccine has a efficacy of 62·1 per cent for recipients of two doses, but was much higher at 90 per cent for a small group, who were given one and a half doses by mistake.
The UAE statement came after Morocco decided on Tuesday to use a Sinopharm vaccine in an ambitious plan to inoculate 80 per cent of its adults starting this month.
“The registration of this vaccine is a decision in response to the application from Sinopharm CNBG. The announcement is a significant vote of confidence by the UAE’s health authorities in the safety and efficacy of this vaccine,” the UAE statement said.
Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccine expert, described the efficacy as “quite good”, adding: “That means if there are 100 infections in the placebo group, there are only 14 infections in the vaccine group.
But he said that it remains unclear what level of antibodies can protect a person from infection as there are infections in the vaccine group although 99 per cent of them have developed antibodies.
The UAE started giving the Sinopharm vaccines to front-line health workers in September after approving its emergency use.
Senior politicians, including Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, have taken the jabs to show confidence in the vaccine.
It remains unclear why Sinopharm, which has two vaccines undergoing final stage trials, has not released its interim data.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma walked back from its earlier
claim that a vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac showed 97 per cent efficacy.
It said that it would have to wait till January for complete data.
On Tuesday, Emer Cooke, the executive director of the European Medicines Agency, told Italian daily La Repubblica that Russia and China had not requested authorisation for their Covid-19 vaccines.
“If they do, we will study the data,” she said.
Cooke also said the agency was not under political pressure to speed up approvals and expected to complete its review of the Pfizer and BioNTEch vaccine by December 29 and to finalise its review of a vaccine from Moderna by January 12.
China has approved three vaccine candidates developed by Sinovac and state-owned Sinopharm for emergency use and given them to over a million people.
Meanwhile, Russia was the first country to grant regulatory approval for a vaccine, but raised safety fears by doing so before large-scale trials were complete.
Additional reporting by Reuters

UAE approves ‘86 per cent effective’ Chinese coronavirus vaccine

Review of Sinopharm’s interim analysis of phase three trials found ‘no serious safety concerns’, health ministry says.

www.scmp.com

The safest vaccine. 4 out of 7 vaccines which passed phase 3 trial come from China.
Sinopharm vaccine is the safest, no genetic modification.

 

[Han Patriot]

Exactly it's not genetically modified. And can be stored at 2 deg fridge. Btw, this is not the Sinovac vaccine right+

 

[atan651]

I'll take the China vaccine (based on old and proven tech) over any western vaccine.

 

[Ahmad Bhutta]

I will opt for sinopharm on any western vaccine with agenda

 

[AwA.]

I'll take the China vaccine (based on old and proven tech) over any western vaccine.

I will opt for sinopharm on any western vaccine with agenda

Personally, I believe exactly the same thing.

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

The 86 percent effective is highly overrated. Tested it on the general public instead of some volunteers and the effective will go way down.

 

[Chhatrapati]

I have repeated myself multiple times, so far the Chinese vaccine is 100% effective with no known adverse effect.

Wait what happened Han boi.

Exactly it's not genetically modified. And can be stored at 2 deg fridge. Btw, this is not the Sinovac vaccine right+

 

[Han Patriot]

Wait what happened Han boi.

This is not the Sinovac vaccine which recently claimed to be 97% effective by Indonesians, I said so far because as per reports it was 100% effective in phase ii so far.

 

[Ahmad Bhutta]

The only thing that's annoying is the delay , Chinese should speed up their vaccine sinopharm and sinovac are capable of taking over world market share alone

 

[Capt. Karnage]

Mind begs the question:
When expert say that 90 percent of people won't be affected with the so called corona virus then what's the use of a vaccine which is effective in only 86 percent of cases?
Are people still don't want to wake up and question their governments and media?

 

[casual]

Mind begs the question:
When expert say that 90 percent of people won't be affected with the so called corona virus then what's the use of a vaccine which is effective in only 86 percent of cases?
Are people still don't want to wake up and question their governments and media?

Because math. With the vaccine 98.6% of people won't be affected. Actually since your 90% number is people who don't develop severe symptoms, the sinopharm vaccine has 100% effective rate.

 

[kanejoyce]

The covid pandemic has really affected our lives a lot, hope that one day life will return to normal as before.
During this complicated epidemic season, what do you usually do? I just found a pretty good game that is smash karts to keep you entertained during the covid season. Join me now