China’s state-controlled firm, Sinopharm, has announced that the interim results of its Phase 3 trials of its COVID-19 vaccine show an efficacy rate of 79.34 per cent—lower than the efficacy rate that the United Arab Emirates had announced on December 9 based on its own trials of the candidate.
Few details were given about this trial, including detailed efficacy data like the study design or number of participants. The vaccine had already been administered to hundreds of thousands, after China’s emergency use programme came into effect in July. The programme had granted authorisation for three vaccines: Two from Sinopharm and one from Sinovac. Among those who have received a Chinese-made vaccine include North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un and UAE’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. According to an AFP report, the presidential security group for Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte even received the vaccine, despite it not receiving regulatory approval, and there being no transparency about how it was brought into the country.
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The vaccine has been approved in the UAE and in Bahrain.
The vaccine’s developer, Beijing Biological Products Institute, a unit of Sinopharm subsidiary China National Biotec Group (CNBG), said that it had applied to the National Medical Products Administration for conditional approval of the vaccine.
China plans to vaccinate 50 million people by February of 2021, the annual time of year that prompts the greatest mass migration in the world as hundreds of millions travel for the Lunar New Year. China claims to have had orders from over 100 countries, as it mounts a PR offensive to distribute the vaccine among developing nations.