ISLAMABAD: Dr Faisal Sultan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health has maintained that the CanSino Biologics Inc’s (CanSinoBIO) COVID-19 vaccine showed 74.8 per cent efficacy in preventing symptomatic cases and a 100pc success rate in stopping severe disease among Pakistanis in an interim analysis.
Dr Faisal went on saying when taking on twitter that in the global trials, the efficacy of the vaccine at preventing symptomatic cases was 65.7pc and 90.98pc at preventing severe disease.
The positive data moves the vaccine, jointly developed by a research institute affiliated with the Chinese military, a step closer to becoming China’s third successful shot for the disease.
Although coronavirus vaccines from Chinese developers have shown lower protection rates than some Western ones, and no detailed study results are publicly available yet, they have already been approved in several developing countries battling a surge in coronavirus infections.
The CanSinoBIO vaccine is being tested in Pakistan, Mexico, Russia, Argentina and Chile, according to clinical trial registration data, and the company has supply deals with some of those countries, including Mexico.
SAPM Sultan had said that Pakistan could receive “in the range of tens of millions” of the vaccine under an agreement with the Chinese firm. On another occasion he said the country is entitled to receive 20 million doses of CanSino’s vaccine, “provided the results are positive and the vaccine proves to be effective”.
Hassan Abbas, head of the CanSinoBIO trial at AJ Pharma in Pakistan, said it has already applied to the government for permission to import the vaccine.
“The initial set of vaccines will come in vials already filled, but we hope in the future to get them in the form of concentrates from CanSino, and do the filling here in Pakistan,” Hassan Abbas opined.
The efficacy of the shot is based on analysis of 30,000 participants and 101 confirmed cases of COVID-19, SAPM Sultan said on Twitter, quoting data from an independent data monitoring committee.
It was not immediately clear whether the study also looked into the vaccine’s efficacy against new and highly transmissible variants first found in South Africa, Britain and Brazil.
No serious safety concerns have been raised in the study, Sultan said.
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