Experts wary, but say Sinopharm jab works

GENEVA: World Health Organization experts have “very low confidence” in data from Chinese state-owned drugmaker Sinopharm on its Covid19 vaccine regarding risk of serious side-effects in some patients, but overall confidence in it preventing the disease.

The “evidence assessment” document was prepared by the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts for its evaluation of the Sinopharm shot, authorised by 45 countries and jurisdictions for use in adults, with 65 million doses administered.

Vaccine efficacy in multi-country Phase 3 clinical trials was 78.1% after two doses, the document said. This was a slight drop from 79.34% announced earlier in China.