North Korea has declined to send about 3 million doses of China’s Coxing vaccine, and said that these vaccines should be sent to countries with more severe outbreaks.
These COVID-19 vaccines have been provided by the COVID-19 Global Access Facility (Covax) in recent weeks. Funds for the program are mainly funded by Western governments to help low-income countries obtain vaccines.
A spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), which represents Covax and helps deliver vaccines, said the North Korean Ministry of Public Health rejected the vaccines. North Korea believes that the global supply of new crown vaccines is limited, while cases in other places continue to surge. The country requires that these vaccines be transferred to countries severely affected by the epidemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that as of August 19, North Korea had no new cases. This statement was questioned by South Korea and the United States. The WHO said in its weekly report that about 37,291 North Koreans, including medical staff and influenza-like illnesses, were tested for the new crown virus and the results were all negative.
This mysterious country has implemented strict epidemic prevention measures since the outbreak of the new crown pandemic. In January last year, North Korea became one of the first countries to close its borders.
This is not the first time North Korea has rejected the new crown vaccine. Reuters quoted a South Korean think tank associated with North Korea’s intelligence agency as saying that North Korea rejected about 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in July, citing concerns about potential side effects. North Korea expresses doubts about the effectiveness of the new crown vaccine. North Korean state media often report adverse events in the United States and Europe after individual vaccination.
Reuters previously quoted a report from the National Institute of Security Strategy (INSS), which is part of the South Korean spy agency, saying that Pyongyang is not very interested in Chinese vaccines because of concerns about the effectiveness of Chinese vaccines. But showed interest in Russian vaccines and hoped to receive free donations.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in July that Russia has repeatedly offered to provide North Korea with Russia’s Sputnik vaccine.
INSS said that although North Korea allows its diplomats stationed overseas to receive the new crown vaccine from the end of March, there is no indication that these vaccines will be used in North Korea.
North Korea is currently one of the few countries in the world that has not yet carried out mass vaccination. As of press time, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not commented on North Korea’s rejection of the Chinese vaccine.
How effective is Kexing vaccine?
This is a problem that most countries in the world want to figure out after Kexing Vaccine goes overseas.
Several countries, such as Thailand and Uruguay, have begun to vaccinate the public who had received the first dose of Coxing vaccine with other vaccines to enhance their protection.
A study conducted by Xu Shuchang, chair professor of the Department of Respiratory System at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, found that the level of antibodies in people who were vaccinated by the Chinese Kexing vaccine was insufficient, and the level of antibodies in the vaccinators had fallen to low levels within a few months.
On August 18, Xu Shuchang’s team gave some people a third shot for testing. Half of them received Kexing vaccine, and the other half received Fubitai vaccine. He hopes to help the government solve the antibody level performance of mixed vaccines.
One month earlier, another research team in Hong Kong showed that the antibodies of Kexing vaccine were lower than those of Pfizer vaccine.
A study from the University of Hong Kong published by the internationally authoritative medical journal “The Lancet” on July 16 showed that people who received two doses of Forbitux had an average antibody level of 269 after one month, while those who received two doses of Kexing vaccine had an average antibody level of 269. Human antibodies are only 27, and the former is about 9 times higher than the latter.
The School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong previously recruited 1442 medical staff to follow up on the antibody situation of the new crown virus vaccine, and initially completed the analysis of 93 vaccinators, of which 63 were given the Bita vaccine and 30 were given the Kexing vaccine. The study found that even with one shot of Fubitai vaccine, the antibody has reached 49, which is 80% higher than those who have received two shots of Kexing vaccine. The average antibody level of one shot of Kexing vaccine is only 7.
It is currently unknown how much antibody value can achieve effective protection, and some experts believe that the higher the better.