The Ministry of Health said that the results of the vaccine were based on a tentative analysis of delayed clinical trials that the UAE began in July, according to the statement carried by the state news agency.
“The analysis does not reveal serious safety concerns,” the statement said, although it did not clarify whether the individual participants had experienced any specific side effects, or the number of volunteers who received the vaccine or placebo.
The statement added that the “official registration” of the Covid-19 vaccine is “a big step towards fighting the global epidemic.” The statement did not clarify what would result from the official registration.
The statement said that the clinical trials included 31,000 volunteers from 125 nationalities in the UAE. So far, about 100,000 people across the Emirates have received the vaccine as part of a volunteer program, Jamal Al Kaabi, a prominent UAE health official, told CNN.
CNN contacted Sinopharm for more details.
In return, many host countries promise early access to successful vaccines – and in some cases, the technical know-how to manufacture them locally.
In November, Sinopharm Chairman Liu Jingzhen said that dozens of countries have requested the company’s vaccines. He did not name the countries or say how much doses they suggested, but he said CNBG is capable of producing more than 1 billion doses in 2021.
“China not only has the political will (for vaccine diplomacy), but it also has a strong capacity to do so,” Huang said.
Compared to Pfizer and Moderna, most Chinese vaccines do not require freezing temperatures for storage, which makes transportation and distribution much easier, especially in developing countries that lack cold storage capabilities.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use pieces of a genetic material called messenger RNA (mRNA) to stimulate the body to make artificial pieces of the coronavirus and stimulate the immune response – a new technology not used in current vaccines.
But mRNA is subject to lysis at room temperature. Moderna vaccine should be stored at -20 ° C (-4 ° F), or in fridge temperatures for up to 30 days, while Pfizer vaccine should be stored in an extremely cold temperature of -75 ° C (-103) F ), And is used within five days once cooled at higher temperatures.
Meanwhile, Sinopharm uses a long-term approach that has proven effective in other vaccines, such as polio and influenza vaccines. Their Coronavirus vaccines use an inactivated whole virus to induce the body to develop its immunity, and it only needs to be stored at standard refrigerator temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit to 46 degrees Fahrenheit). Other Chinese vaccines can be kept in production at similar temperatures.
CNN’s Beijing office and Nectar Gan in Hong Kong contributed to the report.
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