(EC has 1 million doses of Sinovac ready for the populace to be jabbed) April 12, 2021 - (CNN) 'Chinese Covid-19 vaccine efficacy is 'not high,' top health official admits- "The efficacy of Chinese Covid-19 vaccines is "not high" and authorities are weighing options to bolster protection -- including mixing different shots, China's top disease control official has said.
"The protection rates of existing vaccines are not high," Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told a conference in the southwestern city of Chengdu on Saturday.

He listed two options to solve the problem: one is to increase the number of doses, or adjust the dosage or interval between shots; the other is to mix vaccines developed from different technologies.

Gao's remarks are a rare public admission from the country's top health official that the efficacy of China's coronavirus vaccines is not ideal -- and improvements are needed to boost protection.
China has positioned itself as a leader in Covid-19 vaccine development and distribution, promoting and supplying its vaccines to countries all over the globe, including Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Turkey and Brazil.

"More than 60 countries have approved the use of Chinese vaccine. The safety and efficacy of Chinese vaccine is being widely recognized by various countries," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a news conference in March.
The relatively low efficacy rate of Chinese vaccines, however, could hamper credibility and dent Beijing's so-called vaccine diplomacy.

The two pharmaceutical firms that supply the majority of Chinese Covid-19 vaccines to the world have not published comprehensive clinical trial data in medical journals on their vaccines' effectiveness. But from the interim results announced by the companies, their efficacy falls far behind the new type of vaccines developed in the West that use mRNA to trigger an immune response.

The CoronaVac vaccine developed by Sinovac, a private company, was found to have an efficacy rate of just 50.4% in clinical trials in Brazil. Another trial in Turkey showed it was 83.5% effective. State-owned Sinopharm said its two vaccines have efficacy rates of 79.4% and 72.5%.
In comparison, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have efficacy rates of 97% and 94%, respectively.

In March, the United Arab Emirates started offering a third dose of a Sinopharm vaccine to residents who failed to generate sufficient antibodies after two shots...." -

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