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A woman is injected with a dose of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine in Santiago, Chile. File photo: AP

Chile says China’s Sinovac coronavirus vaccine 67 per cent effective against symptomatic infection

  • A Chilean health ministry study also found the shot was 80 per cent effective at preventing deaths from the disease
  • This is the first such evidence showing how well the Chinese jab can protect against Covid-19 after it’s been widely used in a population
A Chilean study said Sinovac Biotech Ltd.’s vaccine is 67 per cent effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19 infections and wards off 80 per cent of fatalities from the disease.

This is the first such evidence showing how well the Chinese shot can protect against Covid-19 after it’s been widely used in a population.

The report also said that the Sinovac vaccine was 85 per cent effective against hospitalisation and 89 per cent in preventing people from entering intensive care units.

The Chilean health ministry study followed 10.5 million citizens enrolled in the country’s public health insurance system and included people that had received one dose, two doses and no dose at all. The effectiveness figures were obtained 14 days after the second dose.

Chile Covid-19 vaccination drive adds to Sinovac efficacy data

The shot developed by the Beijing-based vaccine maker and so far rolled out in more than 30 countries has faced mounting questions about its efficacy, after data emerged from Brazil that showed it had barely crossed the minimum threshold of 50 per cent in preventing the coronavirus and one of its most worrisome mutations.

Countries ranging from Brazil to Indonesia are dependent on Sinovac’s doses to inoculate their populations after the more-effective mRNA vaccines were snapped up mostly by richer nations.

Despite having led one of the world’s fastest vaccine roll-outs, Chile continues to see cases spike after virus-related restrictions were loosened at the end of last year.

Nearly 40 per cent of the population has received at least one dose while about 27 per cent are fully vaccinated, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker.

There is evidence that vaccines are working in Chile. The number of people aged over 70 who are currently in intensive care units because of Covid-19 is less than half what the number of younger people in ICUs would suggest, according to calculations made by Bloomberg News based on a linear regression through January of this year.

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Anecdotal data suggests that the Brazilian variant, currently spreading through Latin America, hits younger people harder than earlier strains, which may partly explain the discrepancy.

Nonetheless, the number of ICU patients in the first groups to be vaccinated has actually fallen, even as total patients rose.

The company and governments worldwide which have ordered Sinovac’s shot have defended its merit in preventing mild and severe cases of Covid-19 at far higher rates. But general efficacy still lags significantly from as much as 95 per cent observed in mRNA shots developed by Pfizer and Moderna and the around 80 per cent protection shown in similar inactivated shots from other Chinese and Indian developers.

Chile overtakes Israel as fastest country to vaccinate

The Sinovac jab was found to have a much higher efficacy rate of 83.5 per cent in Turkey, where it conducted a trial involving more than 10,000 people, which added to the confusion around the vaccine’s real potency.

Sinovac has said the low efficacy found in the Brazil trial was in part due to the shorter interval of 14 days between the vaccine’s two doses and greater exposure to the virus among its trial participants, all of whom were high-risk medical workers.

In a separate study among more than 53,000 health care workers in Brazil, the vaccine was found to be only 49.6 per cent effective in preventing symptomatic disease caused by the coronavirus’s P. 1 mutation, though it was measured after only one dose of the vaccine.

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