In a press conference held recently, China’s top disease control officer Gao Fu said that to tackle the weak impact of the vaccine challenge, China is considering adding several vaccines and applying them to the people. However, he later said that his statement has been misconstrued.
It is known that China has developed four vaccines for public use and one for emergency use. However, in some tests conducted abroad, it was found that these vaccines are less than 50% effective. According to the data, it was found that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are much better than the Chinese vaccines in terms of effectiveness.
However, an important advantage of Chinese vaccines is that they can be kept in a normal refrigerator at two to eight degrees Celsius whereas the temperature of -70 ° C is required for the maintenance of the Pfizer vaccines and -20 ° C for the Moderna.
In China, more than 100 million people have taken at least one dose of these vaccines. At the same time, they have sent these vaccines to many countries like Indonesia, Turkey, Paraguay, and Brazil and are preparing to send them to many countries. China claims that by the end of this year, it will prepare 300 million doses of these vaccines.
Chinese vaccines are quite different from some vaccines, especially from that of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
It has been developed in a traditional way. These are inactivated vaccines that kill virus particles coming into contact with the body’s immune system without putting the body at greater risk. At the same time, vaccines from western countries are mRNA vaccines. This means that the genetic code of the coronavirus is put into the body which lets the immune system know how to respond.
The AstraZeneca vaccine of Britain is a different type of vaccine. A virus found in chimpanzees is altered in such a way that it inherits the genetic properties of the coronavirus. Once in the body, it teaches him how to fight against the real virus.
What did Gao Fu say?
Gao Fu said that China is considering combining different vaccines, given the weak effect of Corona vaccines. According to him, to improve the vaccination process, the number of dosages and the time interval should also be changed.
Continuing on the same Gao Fu also stated that, “To improve the effectiveness of vaccines that are not more effective, giving a dose of different vaccines is one way. The use of vaccines made with different technologies is being considered.”
However, later in an interview given to the government newspaper, he backed down from his statements. He said, “My earlier statement that Chinese vaccines are less effective is the result of a complete misunderstanding.”
According to him, the effect of all vaccines in the world is sometimes very good or sometimes less. However, scientists around the world should consider improving the effect of vaccines. China has also said that its vaccines are completely effective and that any foreigner will get entry into their country only when developed vaccines have been introduced in China.
What do we know about Chinese vaccines?
At the international level, China has released very few statistics about its vaccines whose effect is being considered uncertain for a long time. A trial conducted in Brazil found that China’s Synovac vaccine is only 50.4 percent effective and is only a little over 50 percent of the WHO sanction.
However, according to interim results from Turkey and Indonesia, Synovac was 91 and 65 percent effective respectively. Bioentech, Pfizer, Moderna, or AstraZeneca vaccines developed in Western countries such as the US and Europe have been found to have an efficiency of over 90%.
