WHO supports emergency use of China’s Sinopharm COVID vaccine Coronavirus pandemic News

Sinopharm is the first COVID jab developed by a non-Western country to gain the support of the World Heath Organization.

The World Health Organization has approved the emergency use of the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Sinopharm of China.

On Friday, the decision was made by the WHO technical advisory team, the first in China to open Sinopharm’s offer to join the UN-sponsored COVAX program in the coming weeks or months, and can be distributed to UNICEF Children’s Agency and WHO in the Americas. regional office.

Aside from the efficiency numbers, the Chinese manufacturer has published very little public data about its two vaccines – one developed by the Beijing Institute of Organic Products and the other by the Wuhan Institute of Organic Products -.

The Beijing shooting is an advisory group that has been considered for the WHO’s emergency use list.

“This afternoon, the WHO issued a list of emergency uses for the signing of the Beijing COVID-19 vaccine, making it the sixth vaccine to receive WHO validation for safety, efficacy and quality,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhahom Ghebreyesus.

The Sinopharm vaccine will be combined with a version of the AstraZeneca vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, AstraZeneca and the Indian Serum Institute, after receiving the precious permission of the UN health agency.

“This increases the list of vaccines that COVAX can buy and gives countries confidence to accelerate their regulatory acceptance and import and administer the vaccine,” Tedros said at a press conference in Geneva.

‘Very sure’

Earlier, a group advising the WHO on vaccines said it was “very confident” that the Sinopharm vaccine would protect people aged 18-59.

The group said it had a “low level of confidence” in the effectiveness of the vaccine 60 years or more ago.

Its members said they have “very little confidence” in the data available on serious side effects in that age range.

Sinopharm has not published the results of the final phase published in scientific journals, so the WHO requested the distribution of its data, most of which come from the United Arab Emirates.

A summary published online by the WHO suggests that the vaccine is about 78 percent effective, and warns that except for a few hundred of the research volunteers, they were under 60 years old.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance led by COVAX, is pleased with the announcement.

“This means that the world has another safe and effective tool in the fight against this pandemic,” the alliance said.

The public-private partnership said it was in discussions with several manufacturers, including Sinopharm, to “expand and diversify the portfolio further and ensure access to additional doses” for COVAX program countries.

COVAX aims to send vaccines to 92 low-income countries free of charge and to help acquire those other 99 countries and territories.

It was not immediately clear when the Chinese vaccine could be made available to the COVAX portfolio.