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BEIJING, Jan.2 (Reuters) – Different efficacy results for a Chinese COVID-19 vaccine released separately in China and the United Arab Emirates are both real and valid, a leader of the China National Biotec Group (CNBG) told the state media.
China on Thursday approved its first COVID-19 vaccine for consumer use, a vaccine developed by a state-backed subsidiary of Sinopharm, after the developer said the vaccine showed 79.34% effectiveness based on an interim analysis of late stage clinical trials.
This rate is lower than the 86% rate for the same vaccine reported by the United Arab Emirates on December 9.
Countries have some differences in their standards and procedures for diagnosing patients, and the end results of identifying COVID-19 cases were different, Yang Xiaoming, CNBG chairman of the Sinopharm unit, told the Global Times, a tabloid published by the People’s Daily, the official newspaper. of the ruling Communist Party in China.
“Therefore, there were differences between the comprehensive multi-country data we looked at and the rate of protection data previously assessed by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain,” Yang said in a report released Thursday by Global Times. .
“But these two results are both real and valid,” Yang said, without giving further details on the data.
CNBG did not participate in the analysis or review of clinical trial data released by regulators in countries where its vaccine was being tested, Yang said.
The vaccine, developed by the Beijing Biological Products Institute of the CNBG unit, as well as another candidate from a Wuhan-based CNBG unit, is currently being tested in phase III clinical trials outside of China.
The CNBG candidate trials recruited more than 60,000 participants between the ages of 18 and 60, Yang said.
(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Ryan Woo; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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