Chinese officials have expanded the rollout of the homemade Sinovac coronavirus vaccine so that people other than just those at high risk and priority groups can get it.
Regulators on Friday gave conditional approval to Sinovac Biotech Ltd’s CoronaVac shot, the National Medical Products Administration said Saturday.
The Sinovac vaccine is already available in at least 10 other countries and is being administered in at least 5 other countries. The shot received an emergency permit in China last July for medical personnel and employees of state-owned companies, the AP reported.
However, research on Sinovac is still ongoing. The company must provide data as well as reports of any side effects after the vaccine has been marketed.
Sinovac officials have been accused of a lack of transparency due to conflicting data on the vaccine’s efficacy in different countries. Officials in Turkey, where some of the phase 3 clinical trials took place, said the efficacy was 91.25 percent.
But a study in Brazil showed that the Sinovac vaccine was only 50 percent effective.
Last month, according to a report, China raised fears about the safety of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot to stave off controversy over its own vaccine.
So far, the company has only released Phase 1 and Phase 2 data for its vaccine.
Full clinical trial data for the Phase 3 studies will be released later in a peer-reviewed journal, Sinovac officials said.