China's Sinopharm Covid vaccine 79.34% effective

Drug maker is seeking to be the first licensed to launch a vaccine in China

A Sinopharm sign is seen at the 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing, China. Reuters

The company making a Covid-19 vaccine with China’s state-owned manufacturer Sinopharm, said on Wednesday that its shot is 79.34 per cent effective and they are seeking to get approval to start distributing the first coronavirus drug in China.

The vaccine is already being used in several countries as global Phase 3 trials continue. As different trials progress, fragmentary efficiency data have been released, but this is the first indication from the company behind the drug.

The efficacy rate, based on an interim analysis of Phase 3 clinical trials, is lower than the 86 per cent rate for the same vaccine announced by the United Arab Emirates on December 9, based on preliminary data from trials there. The company did not elaborate on the divergence in results but said further data would be released in time.

Covid around the world – in pictures 

Registered nurse Patricia Cummings administers the COVID-19 vaccine to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris at the United Medical Center in Washington, DC. AFP

The first five vaccinated hospital staff and Health Director Alberto Deales pose for a photo as the Covid-19 vaccine is administered at the Umberto I Hospital in Rome, Italy. A vaccination campaign against Covid-19 started across the EU on 27 December. EPA

A patient with the COVID-19 breaths in oxygen in the COVID-19 ward at Khayelitsha Hospital, about 35km from the centre of Cape Town. The patents in this ward are not critically serious, but do require oxygen and to lie down. South Africa has become the first African nation to record one million coronavirus cases, according to new data published by the country's health ministry on December 27, 2020. Currently suffering a second wave of infections, of which the majority are a new variant of the coronavirus, South Africa is the hardest hit country on the African continent. AFP

City of Tshwane's Special Infection Unit Leading Emergency Care Practitioner Rocco Veer and Station Officer Arrie Visser do final check on the isolation chamber equipped with a negative pressure filtration system used to transport positive Covid-19 patients before starting their night shift at the Hatfield Emergency Station in Pretoria. AFP

Medical staff administer the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against the coronavirus, at the Military Field Number 1A in Mexico City. Mexico will first apply the vaccine to all health personnel and the elderly as part of their mass immunization program. AFP

A woman on a scooter has her temperature taken and is given a facemask at a checkpoint set up to examine people in a bid to halt the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in the southern Thai province of Narathiwat. AFP

Gabriel Cervera and Sanjana Krishnan take a break from treating patients infected with the coronavirus disease at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, U.S. Reuters

People line up in their vehicles at Dodger Stadium as post-Christmas COVID-19 testing resumes during a surge in positive coronavirus disease cases in Los Angeles, California, U.S. Reuters

People wait for their turn during a mass coronavirus testing in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Palma de Mallorca records 621 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and has become Spain's hardest hit area. EPA

Passengers wearing protective face masks wait at a station for a subway during an evening rush hour in Wuhan, China. Life in Wuhan, a Chinese city of more than 11 million, which nearly a year ago became the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak is returning to normal. Since May the capital of Hubei province has not recorded locally-transmitted cases of Covid-19. EPA

An Iranian health worker prepares a dose of locally made COVID-19 vaccine during phase one of its trial test in Tehran, Iran, 29 December 2020. Media reports state that Iran inaugurated and tested its local made coronavirus disease vaccine during the first phase of trial session. EPA

Buses carrying some inmates infected with coronavirus disease leave Dongbu Detention Center in Seoul, South Korea, for a medical clinic. A total of 792 inmates there have come down with the virus so far. EPA

People wearing face masks to protect against the spread of the coronavirus visit the Ameyoko shopping street to purchase ingredients for New Year's dishes, in Tokyo. AP

Villagers wave away journalists visiting a village near Danaoshan in southern China's Yunnan province. A mine shaft in the area once harbored bats infected with the closest known relative of the COVID-19 virus. AP

A medical worker waits for the next individual to take a swab test for the COVID-19 coronavirus at a hospital in Beijing. AFP

Turkish researchers said on Thursday that their interim results from a Covid-19 vaccine developed by China's Sinovac Biotech showed 91.25 per cent efficacy, only to see a confusing readout the same day from Brazil, which said the vaccine's efficacy was between 50 per cent and 90 per cent.

Health experts said that piecemeal data without sufficient detail could undermine confidence in vaccines.

While the efficacy of the China-developed inoculations trails the more than 90 per cent success rate of rival vaccines from Pfizer and its partner BioNTech, or Moderna, it points to progress China has made in the global race to develop successful Covid-19 vaccines.

China, whose President Xi Jinping pledged to make its vaccines a global public good, has won several large supply deals with countries including Indonesia and Brazil – the most populous countries in South-East Asia and Latin America respectively.

But detailed efficacy data is yet to be released by any of China’s drug makers.

"I think it's very positive news. The results for other Covid vaccines were also released initially in very short press releases, and within a few weeks more details were provided," said Benjamin Cowling, a public health professor at the University of Hong Kong.

Experts said that it is still early to conclude how successful the Sinopharm vaccine is.

"Data can only be interpreted when key details, such as the study design, number of participants, period of observation and number of cases, are described," said Ooi Eng Eong, an immunology professor at the National University of Singapore.

The Sinopharm vaccine is among the five most advanced candidates from China in terms of development and has been used in its emergency use programme that has vaccinated hundreds of thousands of people since July.

Its developer, Beijing Biological Products Institute, a unit of Sinopharm subsidiary China National Biotec Group, said that it had applied to the National Medical Products Administration for conditional approval of the vaccine.

CNBG has another vaccine in late-stage trials and both have been approved for emergency use in China despite studies not yet being complete.

The approval request in China came as Britain on Wednesday approved a second Covid-19 vaccine, a shot developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, as the country battles a major winter surge driven by a new variant of the virus.