[There have been signs the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines are less effective than hoped, even as Beijing is pushing for foreigners to use them and enjoy streamlined access to resume travel to China. This week, Sinopharm’s distributor in the United Arab Emirates said a “very small number” of people are being invited to take a third dose of the vaccine after insufficient antibody response from the first two doses.]
Today,
the vaccine sits unused in a storage facility. The wealthy city-state is moving
ahead with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots for its coronavirus immunization
program, with officials saying Sinovac needs to provide more data before they
will consider rolling out its doses.
The
case highlights the limitations of Beijing’s vaccine diplomacy. China’s lack of transparency in
its clinical trials has hurt public confidence, even as national leaders from
Indonesia to Sierra Leone have gotten the shots to rally their populations to
do the same.
China’s
coronavirus vaccine makers Sinovac and Sinopharm were among the earliest in the world to begin clinical
trials last year. It remains unclear why they still have not published the data
from the studies, even after dozens of governments have greenlighted their
vaccines for emergency use.
“It’s
extremely unusual,” said Peter English, a British expert in
communicable-disease control, of the widespread use of these vaccines before
the publication of peer-reviewed data. “It leaves a lot of questions.”
[China
rolls out anal swab coronavirus test, saying it’s more accurate than throat
method]
There
have been signs the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines are less effective than
hoped, even as Beijing is pushing for foreigners to use them and enjoy streamlined access to resume travel to China.
This week, Sinopharm’s distributor in the United Arab Emirates said a “very
small number” of people are being invited to take a third dose of the vaccine
after insufficient antibody response from the first two doses.
State-owned
pharma giant Sinopharm has self-reported a 79 percent efficacy rate. Smaller
rival Sinovac’s efficacy rate has varied in trials from 50.4 percent in Brazil
— barely above the 50 percent threshold that governments find usable — to over
80 percent in Turkey.
The
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Sinopharm and Sinovac did
not respond to requests for comment.
China’s
coronavirus vaccines remain oversubscribed by developing countries, as wealthier nations hoard the most effective vaccines
made by U.S. biotech company Moderna and U.S. pharmaceutical firm Pfizer with
its German partner BioNTech.
[China
had a head start on coronavirus vaccinations. It’s now falling behind the West.]
In
Singapore’s case, the government has the luxury of a small population of 5.7
million people to immunize and more effective vaccines at hand.
Chong
Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University
of Singapore, said Singapore’s government did not turn down the Sinovac
vaccine, which would be an affront to Beijing, but regulators also couldn’t
approve its use on such limited data.
“Singapore
has options, unlike some of the countries who have received Sinovac,” Chong
said.
Other
countries with larger populations and fewer options have accepted China’s
vaccines, sometimes after considerable griping from top leaders.
Brazil,
South America’s most populous country, has adopted Sinovac’s vaccine after initial resistance
from President Jair Bolsonaro. The Philippines accepted a donation of Sinovac
vaccines from China last month, despite President Rodrigo Duterte saying he
personally wants to take a different Chinese vaccine, according to Reuters.
Vaccine
makers usually release details of their Phase 3 clinical trials in
peer-reviewed journals before the vaccines gain regulatory approval.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna published theirs in the New England Journal of
Medicine in December.
Sinopharm
and Sinovac have self-reported some key results, but they have not published
the underlying data in a journal, which would require vetting by third-party
experts.
Chinese
government officials and industry executives have largely deflected questions
about when they will release the data. In an interview with state-run tabloid
Global Times this month, Shao Yiming, a vaccine expert with China’s CDC,
claimed that the countries where Sinovac and Sinopharm ran trials — including
Brazil and the UAE — must be the ones to release it.
“Whether
to release the clinical trial data, when and how, must be decided by the
foreign institutions,” Shao said. “China has no power to decide.”
At
a Beijing news conference on March 15, health regulators ignored a question on
when data will be released, according to the transcript. Sinopharm and Sinovac
executives also have not addressed the question.
More
than 60 countries have approved one of China’s coronavirus vaccines for market
use or emergency use, according to the China International Development
Cooperation Agency.
[Bribery
cloud hangs over Chinese drug maker Sinovac]
Malaysia
began using Sinovac’s vaccine this month, after kicking off its vaccination
drive with limited supplies of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and
British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca, which developed a shot with Oxford
University. Malaysia’s science minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, took the first shot
of the Sinovac vaccine to shore up confidence.
“I
want to say, it is safe,” he wrote in Chinese on Twitter after receiving the first dose. “I feel
great. And my Chinese has suddenly gotten better.”
Chinese
leader Xi Jinping has yet to publicly take a vaccine. Sinopharm said this month
more than 5,000 senior officials attending the country’s annual legislative session had been
vaccinated.
In
Hong Kong, vaccine mistrust has jumped after seven people died following Sinovac
doses and one after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, although no
causation has been established.
The
Chinese territory has expanded its vaccine program to include anyone over 30,
who can choose from either the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or Sinovac’s, after
priority groups were reluctant to take up the shots. That is a situation
Singapore is trying to avoid, experts say, as it could delay the reopening of
borders and the economy.
English,
the communicable-disease expert, said vaccine makers typically publish clinical
trial results transparently to build public trust. This is especially critical
during a pandemic, where public indecision about whether to get a vaccine costs
lives.
Singapore’s
ministry of health said that it received its first shipment of Sinovac doses on
Feb. 23. The country’s Health Sciences Authority said this week it has begun
reviewing the data that Sinovac had submitted, but it needs more information
from the company.
Regulators
are “still waiting for the company to submit the data,” the Health Sciences
Authority said.
Read
more
China
had a head start on coronavirus vaccinations. It’s now falling behind the West.
China
rolls out anal swab coronavirus test, saying it’s more accurate than throat
method
As
China nears a coronavirus vaccine, bribery cloud hangs over drugmaker Sinovac
