China mulls mixing COVID-19 vaccines to boost efficacy of jabs
11 April, 2021
China is taking into consideration the combining of different COVID-19 vaccines to increase the relatively low efficacy of its existing alternatives, a top health professional has told a meeting.
Authorities have to "consider techniques to solve the problem that efficacy costs of existing vaccines aren't high", Chinese media outlet The Paper reported, citing Gao Fu, the head of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
His comments mark the 1st time a top Chinese expert has publicly alluded to the relatively low efficacy of the country's vaccines, as China forges ahead in its mass vaccination advertising campaign and exports its jabs all over the world.
China has administered about 161 million doses since vaccinations commenced last year - a lot of people will require two photos - and aims to fully inoculate 40 per cent of its 1.4 billion population by June.
But many have already been slow to sign up for jabs, with lifestyle largely back to normal within China's borders and domestic outbreaks in order.
Gao has previously stressed the best way to prevent the pass on of COVID-19 is vaccination, and said found in a recent state mass media interview that China aims to vaccinate 70 % to 80 % of its population between the end of the year and mid-2022.
At the conference in Chengdu on Saturday (Apr 10), Gao added that an option to overcome the efficacy problem is to alternate the utilization of vaccine doses that tap different technologies.
This is a choice that health professionals outside China are studying as well.
Gao said experts shouldn't ignore mRNA vaccines just because there are already several coronavirus jabs in the united states, urging for further expansion, The Paper reported.
Presently, none of China's jabs conditionally approved for the marketplace are mRNA vaccines, but products that utilize the technology include those simply by US pharma giant Pfizer and German start-up BioNTech, in addition to by Moderna.
China has four conditionally approved vaccines, whose published efficacy costs remain behind rival jabs by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, that have 95 per cent and 94 per cent rates respectively.
China's Sinovac previously said trials in Brazil showed about 50 % efficacy in protecting against infection and 80 % efficacy in preventing conditions requiring medical intervention.
Sinopharm's vaccines possess efficacy costs of 79.34 % and 72.51 % respectively, as the overall efficacy for CanSino's stands at 65.28 per cent after 28 days.
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