What Is Sinovac? Here's What You Need To Know About The Chinese COVID-19 Vaccine

With the possibility of the coronavirus pandemic making a comeback, many countries across the globe are busy in preparing the best vaccine to counter its effects. Making positive progress in one such vaccine is a Chinese biotech company, Sinovac, which has announced that its COVID-19 vaccine in the making has exhibited positive results by inducing an immune response in 90 percent of the volunteers who were administered the vaccine.

In the trial of the vaccine, named CoronaVac, around 743 healthy adults were recruited. Of them, 600 were a part of phase II and 143 of phase I of the randomized control trials. In the first trial, where the volunteers were administered two injections two weeks apart, it was seen that neutralizing antibodies, in more than 90 percent of volunteers, were induced by the vaccine. The vaccine showed no adverse effects in the volunteers.

“Our phase I/II study shows CoronaVac is safe and can induce an immune response. Concluding our phase I/II clinical studies with these encouraging results is another significant milestone we have achieved in the fight against Covid-19,” said Weidong Yin, chief executive of Sinovac.

“Like with our other vaccines, we are committed to developing CoronaVac for global use as part of our mission of supplying vaccines to eliminate human diseases,” he added.

CoronaVac is proving to be the safe and effective solution the world has been looking for against coronavirus. The announcement of its positive results was made by Sinovac via a press release, wherein the company assured that the full trial data will be made available soon.

The company has also announced that they will be joining hands with Instituto Butantan in Brazil in order to conduct the next step of the trials.

"To be a front runner a vaccine has to have demonstrated appropriate immunogenicity, safety, and vaccine efficacy. But it also has to have an appropriate yield to get to hundreds of millions if not billions of doses and a manufacturer would be in a position to distribute the vaccine in an equitable way," said Dr. Nick Jackson, head of programmes and technology at CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation)

"There are a lot of groups going very very fast at the moment but they may not have all the necessary components... But Sinovac does have the potential to be a front runner," he added.