China authorized conditional approval for its first COVID-19 vaccine for general use on Thursday. Sinopharm, a state-controlled company, said that a vaccine developed by its Beijing Institute of Biological Products is 79.3 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 based on preliminary results.
Medical experts have cautioned that trial data needs to be shared. The announcement of the vaccine's success did not detail the size of the control group, how many people were vaccinated and at what point the efficacy rate was reached after injection, according to the Associated Press.
In a reversal of previous comments, Zeng Yixin, vice minister of China's National Health Commission, said in a news conference Thursday that the vaccine will be provided for all citizens free of cost.
Fourteen vaccines are being developed by China, where the COVID-19 pandemic originated. Each of those are now in clinical trials.
Chen Shifei, deputy commissioner of the National Medical Products Administration told a news conference that China had granted conditional approval for the vaccine, meaning research is still ongoing, and the company will be required to submit follow-up data, as well as reports of any adverse effects, after the vaccine is sold on the open market.
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.
The approval should allow the vaccine to be supplied more widely at home and abroad. China is eager to ship its vaccines globally, to repair the damage to its image caused by the pandemic that started a year ago in the central city of Wuhan.
Officials have said the vaccine standards were developed in "close cooperation" with the World Health Organization.
The Sinopharm shot is already under mass production and has been approved in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and is scheduled for use next in Morocco.
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