Disease Control Expert Says Chinese Vaccine Efficiency Low, Retracts Claim Afterward

A top disease control expert from China made a startling claim about COVID-19 vaccines, initially alleging that the efficacy of jabs is low and weak. However, it did not take him long to clarify his statements and said that his comments were taken out of context.

In a report from BBC.com, Gao Fu, China’s top disease control official allegedly said that the vaccines locally available lacked efficacy and was considering mixing the vaccines to boost it. China has four different vaccines available but the concern is that the levels of protection were not that high.

Gao would, later on, explain that his comments were misinterpreted. More than 100 million people in China have received at least one shot of the vaccine and Beijing insisted that they are effective. Also, visas would reportedly be easy to obtain if they got the Chinese vaccine.

Initially, the head of the Chinese Centres of Disease Control and Prevention said that the vaccines needed to be optimized. That includes him suggesting that the jabs be mixed to boost efficacy. Among the steps they could undertake would be changing the number of doses and the length of time. However, it appears that his suggestion of mixing the different vaccines to boost the immunization process has raised questions.

Not long after that, he went on record to say that the "protection rates of all vaccines in the world are sometimes high, and sometimes low". As far as improving the level of efficacy, it is something that needs further study and considered by scientists from around the world. Gao, later on, explained that his comment about the vaccine having a low protection rate was a “compete misunderstanding.”

With limited details, the effectiveness of Chinese vaccines has left most thinking. The well-known vaccine from China is Sinovac, a jab that reportedly has a 50.4% efficacy rate. It is at the borderline level and barely over the 50% threshold needed for regulatory approval by the World Health Organization (WHO).

However, the efficacy rate in other countries was drastically different. In Turkey and Indonesia, it was found that Sinovac had a better efficacy rate ranging from 65 to 91%. Other vaccines like BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna showed an efficacy rate of around 90% or higher while the UK's AstraZeneca jab is said to be roughly around 76%.

Sinovac is the COVID-19 vaccine ordered in regions like Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan. Outside Asia, other countries like Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador have also ordered millions of the jab.