A vaccine produced by China National Pharmaceutical Group. (Photo source: GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images)
[Look at China July 6, 2021](Look at the compilation by Chinese reporter Cheng Rong) The tropical island of Seychelles (Seychelles), known asCovid-19 vaccineThe country with the highest vaccination rate is now facing further lockdown because it has suffered the highest rate of new infections in the world. Seychelles is not so much a geopolitical battlefield as it is a paradise for honeymooners, and now it finds itself at the center of the debate about the effectiveness of vaccines in China.
Countries using Chinese vaccines worry about effectiveness
According to a special report in The Times, Seychelles President Ramkalawan told reporters: “There has always been vaccine politics between the West and China, but unfortunately, Seychelles is caught in the middle. “After the Ministry of Health reported that a third of the infected people had been vaccinated, his government was fighting a worrying new peak of vaccine hesitation.
Most of the vaccines launched came from China’s state-owned manufacturer Sinopharm Group, and were donated by the United Arab Emirates, an important ally of Seychelles. The 62-year-old Ramkarawang did not want to appear ungrateful. He insisted that the situation could be worse and emphasized that two-thirds of the hospitalized patients had not been vaccinated. He said: “The vaccine of Sinopharm has saved our country.”
Vaccination rates in Bahrain and the UAE are also very high, but they have also seen a surge in the number of infections. Sinopharm has once again become the core of its vaccination plan, which proves that the political inclination of the Gulf countries is tilted to the east, and they are nervous about the reliability of its main ally, the United States, under the leadership of the new president.
Choosing a Chinese vaccine seems to be an effective way to sign a new loyalty to Beijing, but it may now have a counterproductive effect on them. They have cautiously begun to provide booster shots for those who have already received two shots, including the use of Pfizer’s vaccine.
Indonesia recently lost 26 doctors due to Covid-19. Ten of these doctors were vaccinated with Sinovac, the second Chinese vaccine to be urgently approved by the World Health Organization, but its effectiveness has been questioned in Chile and Brazil.
In Thailand, a Ministry of Health document leaked on July 5 prompted calls for medical staff to provide mRNA vaccine boosters such as Pfizer, because the document stated that the move would “recognize that Kexing vaccine is ineffective”.
China is eager to promote its vaccination in order to restore its image damaged by the Covid-19 controversy surrounding Wuhan. China is obviously more generous in providing vaccination to poorer countries than countries such as the United Kingdom. Xi Jinping called vaccine diplomacy a “global public welfare”, and nearly a hundred countries have begun to receive millions of Chinese vaccines.
People vote with their feet
But this display of soft power is now under threat, because health officials and the public are increasingly hesitant about the effectiveness of vaccines made in China. The Philippine health department said that it will stop publishing its vaccine brand because of an overnight queue at a vaccination site that is said to store Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines instead of vaccines from China.
Sinopharm Group and Kexing Group have defended their products, and Beijing’s ruling party has shown sensitivity to reports questioning its efficacy. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told The Wall Street Journal that such reports in the Western media “exposed their unhealthy mentality of slandering China at all times.”
China’s vaccine technology is backward
However, the opacity of clinical trial results also exacerbated people’s concerns. The former chairman of the British Medical Association’s Public Health Medicine Committee, Peter English, told The Times: “China’s approach seems to be’we will announce what we want to announce, and we will expect you to believe it.’ This is useless. There are fewer things in the public domain than people usually expect, and less than people are satisfied with before deciding how effective the vaccine is. This doesn’t mean they don’t work, it’s just different from what we’re used to. ”
A year ago, when the world was struggling to produce vaccines, a scientific contest had not yet become a political contest. The WHO decided that if a vaccine could prevent 50% of infections, it would be approved. . This means that people who are vaccinated are half as likely to get a symptomatic infection as people who are not vaccinated.
The first two vaccines that announced the results: Moderna and Pfizer, passed with excellent results and prevented more than 90% of infections. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is slightly less effective, but it still comfortably exceeds the passing line. Sinopharm claims about 78% of the curative effect, but Sinopharm, which accounts for most of China’s domestic immunization campaigns, barely passed with 51%.
Both vaccines in China use established methods and involve inactivated versions of the entire virus, while Pfizer and AstraZeneca use more advanced genetic engineering.
In theory, the old technology used in China can prove to be more resistant to new virus strains, but as the highly contagious Delta variant has spread, Kexing’s 51% figure is expected to drop. The percentage that really matters will also drop. When announcing the third phase of Coxing’s trials in Brazil, some people claimed that it could prevent hospital admissions by 100%.
Regardless of its true effectiveness in preventing infection, the statement surrounding hospital admissions must be revised, especially considering the situation of doctors who died after two doses reported in Indonesia.
Without proper testing and statistical analysis, it is difficult to know how to treat these and other worrying events. The UK is experiencing the third wave of the epidemic, but this is not because the vaccine plan has failed, but because it has not gone far enough.
China’s vaccine is better than nothing
The comparison between Seychelles and Israel, which ranks second in the list of the most vaccinated countries in the world, is unfavorable. Early reports from Seychelles showed that Sinopharm’s vaccine effectiveness rate was 50%, instead of the 78% effectiveness rate shown in the Chinese trial. Data show that the Pfizer vaccine used in Israel is 94% effective in preventing transmission.
However, as countries are competing for Pfizer, Oxford, and other Western vaccines, in poorer countries, the debate about whether Sinopharm’s or Kexing’s vaccines can fight against new variants may be “a luxury that they cannot afford”. Eric Olander, executive editor of the China Africa Project website and podcast, said: “At this moment of crisis, China’s vaccines may just be seen as better than nothing.”
China is not the only authoritarian regime seeking to use its own vaccine to increase its influence. A recent study published in the journal “The Lancet” found that the Russian Sputnik V vaccine has a high efficacy. It has been promoted in Argentina, Venezuela, Iran and Hungary.
However, judging the success of a vaccine cannot only be based on whether the recipient is free from serious illness or death: only by avoiding blockade, that is, reducing transmission, can the economy recover.
Raina MacIntyre, head of the biosafety program at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, told the New York Times: “You really need to use a highly effective vaccine To obtain this economic benefit, because otherwise they will be associated with this disease for a long time. The choice of vaccine is very important.”
Source: Look at China
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