Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm has announced that its COVID-19 vaccine is 79% effective, according to the results of its Phase 3 trials. “The protective effect of the Sinopharm CNBG Beijing vaccine against COVID-19 is 79.34%,” said the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, one of Sinopharm’s subsidiaries, in a statement. Today’s announcement is the first time Sinopharm releases data regarding the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine, attenuating the fears and uncertainties that some people have felt towards the vaccine.
The efficacy rate of Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine is not as high as some other approved vaccines, such as those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. However, Chinese officials have repeatedly assured the international community of the vaccine’s safety, claiming that there have been no serious adverse reactions in inoculated patients.
Countries such as the UAE and Bahrain have already begun administering the Sinopharm vaccine to their respective populations. Other nation states, including Morocco, Peru, and Argentina, have ordered doses of the vaccine, but are yet to begin their vaccination campaign. Morocco purchased 65 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines earlier this month. The country purchased both the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine and the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine but health authorities did not disclose the number of doses purchased from each company.