Chinese disease control top official admits about the low effectiveness of Chinese vaccines. In order to give a boost, experts are thinking about mixing it with another vaccine. Director of China Centers for Disease Control named Gao Fu has said “don’t have very high protection rates” during a conference at Chengdu which is one of the southwestern city of China. Millions of vaccines have been distributed by China abroad while creating confusion on the mind of people regarding Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine that is created by using RNA or mRNA messenger process which is quite experimental. Further Gao has said “It’s now under formal consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process.”
During news conference, Chinese officials have not replied regarding comment from Gao. However, it has been confirmed that Chinese experts have been trying to develop an mRNA based vaccine now.
One of the officials, Wang Huaqing has said “The mRNA vaccines developed in our country have also entered the clinical trial stage”. However, timeline has not been offered on the occasion regarding final production of the vaccine. Experts believe that sequential immunization or vaccine mixing can prove to be beneficial as far as boosting of effectiveness is concerned.
Researchers from Britain have been also considering about a combination of traditional AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine
In the latter half of 2019, coronavirus pandemic has started in China. It is the first time when drug industry from China has responded to the health emergency globally.
Chinese vaccine comes from two state backed companies named Sinovac and Sinopharm. Till now, the vaccines have been exported to minimum 22 countries such as Turkey, Mexico, Hungary, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil.
Sinovac vaccine is effective up to 50.4% and it has been found by the researchers in Brazil whereas the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNtech is 97% effective.
Chineses vaccines may not be sold in United States, Japan and Western Europe due to complex nature of the approval process.
Liu Peichang, a Sinovac spokesman has said that effectiveness of the vaccines varies based on the age of people in addition to the virus strain and other factors.
By the China government, foreign vaccine for use has not been approved yet. Possible changes in the policy have not been indicated by Gao. However, hint towards mRNA vaccine has been given indeed.
Later on, Gao has also added “Everyone should consider the benefits mRNA vaccines can bring for humanity. We must follow it carefully and not ignore it just because we already have several types of vaccines already.”
Previously, Gao himself has questioned about mRNA vaccines safety. On the occasion, he has been worried about its negative effect as the vaccines are being used on the healthy people for the first time.
Till 2nd April, 34 million people in China have already received two doses of vaccine whereas 65 million people have received only single dose of the vaccine.
