Coronavirus: China admits doubts about its vaccines, which are used in 22 countries

BEIJING (AP) .- In the middle of a strong coronavirus epidemic around the world, which caused closures in several European countries and a record 150,000 positives in 24 hours in India, and as the vaccination campaigns since China they questioned the efficiency medicines manufactured in the country, implemented in several Latin American countries, such as Argentina and Chile.

Today, the highest authority in China’s Disease Control Agency, Director Gao Fu, gave a lecture in which he made an unusual statement that caught everyone’s attention: officially spoke about the weakness of vaccines.

Chinese medicines “do not have very high protection rates”, he said in the southwestern city of Chengdu, adding that this was the reason why the Communist Party government was considering combining them. “Now it is officially considered if we should use different vaccines different technical lines for the vaccination process, ” Gao added.

Although he did not give details of any changes in the strategyHe mentioned mRNA, a previously experimental technology used by Western vaccine makers, while Chinese pharmaceutical companies are using established techniques. “Everyone must consider the benefits that mRNA vaccines can bring to humanity”, He said and after that he added: “We have to follow it carefully and not ignore it just because we already have several types of vaccines.”

The state official had in the past questioned the safety of mRNA vaccines. The official press agency Xinhua cited his statements in December in which he said he couldn’t rule out negative side effects because it was the first time that vaccines had been used in healthy people.

China, the first country in which a wave of coronavirus cases has been detected, and where specialists in the World Health Organization They went looking for data and understand the origin of the pandemic, which has lasted for more than a year, is a major producer of vaccines and has already distributed hundreds of millions of doses to other countries, such as Argentina, where in the vaccination campaign the appeal was used Sinopharm.

Another medicine made in China is Sinovac, which is implemented in Chile and that according to a survey carried out in Brazil, it has an efficacy rate to avoid symptomatic cases of only 50.4%. In comparison, the Pfizer it is 97% effective. However, in the Asian country, no foreign vaccine has yet been approved.

The doubts around these drugs are now added to the controversy around the candidate to stop the laboratory pandemic AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, whose effectiveness has been questioned for weeks due to certain side effects, such as bleeding disorders, which have led several European governments to suspend its use.

As of April 2, some 34 million people had received the two doses of Chinese vaccines, which have been exported to 22 countries, when some 65 million people had already taken a dose, Gao said.

In this context, experts point out that mix vaccines, process identified as sequential vaccination, may increase efficacy rates. Several trials in different parts of the world are studying the effect of mixing vaccines or giving a booster dose after a long time.

THE NATION