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GLOBALink | China-developed COVID-19 vaccines safe, effective: officials

Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-05 20:06:08|Editor: huaxia


BEIJING, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- China is at the forefront of global COVID-19 vaccine development, and the country has always attached great importance to the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing on Monday that China highly values the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.

Hua said that China actively supports domestic enterprises in forging cooperation with foreign counterparts on vaccine research and development as well as production. Currently, multiple vaccines developed by Chinese enterprises are undergoing phase III clinical trials abroad with smooth progress.

Some countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have approved the Chinese inactivated vaccine registration according to the World Health Organization technical standards.

Countries, including Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, Chile and Malaysia, have ordered vaccines developed by Sinovac Biotech.

Brazil's state-run Butantan Institute announced in late December that Sinovac's vaccine achieved the levels of efficacy against the coronavirus required by the World Health Organization (WHO) in trials with 13,000 Brazilian volunteers.

"The data corroborate that it is the safest vaccine on the market and we achieved the superiority in efficacy required by the WHO and Brazil's Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa)," Dimas Covas, director of the institute, said at a press conference.

The level of efficacy required by the WHO is greater than 50 percent, he said.

"We have reached the level of effectiveness that allows us to request the registration for emergency use of the vaccine both here and in China. It is a historic day for Brazilian science because of the hope it brings to Brazilians," said Covas.

Also late last month, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said a Chinese COVID-19 vaccine is 91.25 percent effective in trials in Turkey.

"We are sure that the vaccine is effective and safe for Turkish people," the minister said at a press conference.

"In the early period, the protection rate of the vaccine is 91.25 percent. This will gradually increase," he said, referring to the studies of the vaccine in Turkey.

Meanwhile, an Egyptian official said that the China-developed anti-coronavirus vaccine Egypt has received is effective, safe and easier to use.

"I am more convinced of the Chinese vaccine, which uses the recognized traditional technology of using killed virus," Osama Abdel-Hay, secretary general of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate, told Xinhua Monday in an interview.

The Chinese vaccine is "suitable for us, and I assure all Egyptians that it is safe," Abdel-Hay said.

Pakistan has decided to procure vaccine from China's state owned company Sinopharm because of its effectiveness and safety to fight against the COVID-19 virus, the country's federal minister for science and technology said on Dec. 31, 2020.

The availability of the vaccine and its cost effectiveness as compared to available vaccines from other countries are also the main factors for Pakistan to pre-book it, Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain told Xinhua through a telephone interview.

"We were checking vaccines from different countries before taking the final decision of pre-booking. Like other companies, Sinopharm also shared its data with Pakistan, and we chose it after finding it effective on the virus, and safe on human health," he said.

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