Low efficacy of China’s jabs sparks social media stir

BEIJING: Concern over the efficacy of China’s Covid-19 vaccines is rising after a senior health official acknowledged the level of protection they provide is not high, before backtracking on the comments, and a key shot was confirmed to be less potent than other immunisations.

George Fu Gao, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said at a forum on Saturday that something needed to be done to address the low protection rate of the Chinese shots, according to local news outlet the Paper.

The rare admission by a senior Chinese official appeared to go viral on social media over the weekend, but posts and media reports about Prof Gao’s comments were quickly censored or taken down. Prof Gao told state-backed newspaper the Global Times yesterday that his remarks were misinterpreted, and were only meant to suggest ways to improve the efficacy of vaccines.

Meanwhile, a study published over the weekend on late-stage testing of Sinovac Biotech Ltd’s vaccine in Brazil confirmed readouts from late last year that showed its efficacy at slightly above 50%, a level that barely crosses the mark of minimum protection required for Covid vaccines by leading drug regulators.

Other coronavirus shots developed by Chinese companies have reported efficacy of anywhere between 66% to 79% in preventing symptomatic Covid — all below the more than 90% protection rate found in the mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc.

China is aiming to vaccinate 40% of its population — or 560 million people — by the end of June.

At a forum on vaccines in Chengdu on Saturday, Prof Gao suggested that following up inoculations with additional booster shots and mixing different types of vaccines could help tackle the effectiveness issue, according to the Global Times. He also appealed to people to get vaccinated, saying that the benefits far outweighed the risks.

Chinese vaccine developers have been criticised for a lack of transparency and lag foreign peers in publishing full trial data in peer-reviewed medical journals. The study on Sinovac vaccine’s late stage trial in Brazil came three months after its efficacy readouts. State-owned Sinopharm has yet to publish full data from Phase III trials for its two inactivated vaccines.