BEIJING (AP) China authorized its first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine for general use Thursday, adding another shot that could see wide use in poorer countries as the virus surges back around the globe. The Sinopharm vaccine had already been given to groups such as health care professionals and essential workers under emergency-use guidelines as part of China's program to inoculate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year holiday in February..
China approves first homegrown vaccine said to be 79 3% effective hindustantimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hindustantimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Updated
Dec 31, 2020
China Approves 1st Homegrown Vaccine With Research Still Ongoing
Sinopharm said that preliminary data from last-stage trials had shown the vaccine to be 79.3% effective.
HUIZHONG WU and KEN MORITSUGU
BEIJING (AP) China has approved its first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine for general use, health regulators said Thursday, marking the addition of another vaccine in the global fight against a virus that is surging back in many places as winter sets in.
The two-dose vaccine from state-owned Sinopharm is the first approved for general use in China. The go-ahead comes shortly after the country launched a program to vaccinate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year holiday in February. It also comes one day after British regulators authorized AstraZeneca’s inexpensive and easy-to-handle vaccine.
FILE - In this Dec. 25, 2020, file photo, released by Xinhua News Agency, packages of COVID-19 inactivated vaccine products are seen at a production plant of the Beijing Biological Products Institute Co., Ltd, a unit of state-owned Sinopharm in Beijing. China has given conditional approval to a coronavirus vaccine developed by state-owned Sinopharm. The vaccine is the first one approved for general use in China.(Zhang Yuwei/Xinhua via AP, File)
BEIJING China authorized its first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine for general use Thursday, adding another shot that could see wide use in poorer countries as the virus surges back around the globe.
BEIJING (AP) China has approved its first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine for general use, health regulators said Thursday, marking the addition of another vaccine in the global fight against a virus that is surging back in many places as winter sets in.
The two-dose vaccine from state-owned Sinopharm is the first approved for general use in China. The go-ahead comes shortly after the country launched a program to vaccinate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year holiday in February. It also comes one day after British regulators authorized AstraZeneca s inexpensive and easy-to-handle vaccine.
The back-to-back approvals could bring poorer countries, many of which have been unable to secure the Pfizer and Moderna doses being snapped up by rich countries, one step closer to getting vaccines sooner. Pakistan s science minister said Thursday that his government will buy 1.2 million doses of a Sinopharm vaccine, two days after its death toll topped 10,000.