- 13 May 2021 01:16
#15172079
This approval is important to me personally as it is more likely to enable reciprocity in vaccine recognition between EU/US/China. The Chinese government has announced that it will likely start approving Western vaccines for domestic use in a few days - AstraZeneca and Moderna are the most likely to be offered. Globally, it is good news for Covax - hopefully this approval will do some good in Africa and especially in India.
BBC wrote:The World Health Organization (WHO) has granted emergency approval for a Covid vaccine made by Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm.
It is the first vaccine developed by a non-Western country to get WHO backing.
The vaccine has already been given to millions of people in China and elsewhere.
The WHO had previously only approved the vaccines made by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna.
But individual health regulators in various countries - especially poorer ones in Africa, Latin America and Asia - have approved Chinese jabs for emergency use.
With little data released internationally early on, the effectiveness of the various Chinese vaccines has long been uncertain.
But the WHO on Friday said it had validated the "safety, efficacy and quality" of the Sinopharm jab developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products.
The WHO said the addition of the vaccine had "the potential to rapidly accelerate Covid-19 vaccine access for countries seeking to protect health workers and populations at risk".
It is recommending that the vaccine be administered in two doses to those aged 18 and over.
A decision is expected in the coming days on another Chinese vaccine developed by Sinovac, while Russia's Sputnik vaccine is under assessment.
[...]
One of the Chinese vaccines' main advantages is that they can be stored in a standard refrigerator at 2-8 degrees Celsius, like the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The WHO said these "easy storage requirements" made the Sinopharm vaccine "highly suitable for low-resource settings".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56967973
This approval is important to me personally as it is more likely to enable reciprocity in vaccine recognition between EU/US/China. The Chinese government has announced that it will likely start approving Western vaccines for domestic use in a few days - AstraZeneca and Moderna are the most likely to be offered. Globally, it is good news for Covax - hopefully this approval will do some good in Africa and especially in India.