Chinese state-run media are reporting that a coronavirus vaccine being developed in the country has a similar efficacy rate to the one announced by American pharmaceutical firm Pfizer last week.
China’s Global Times and China Central Television (CCTV) posted tweets on Monday citing one the country’s top COVID-19 experts, Zhong Nanshan, who said that the Chinese vaccine in question was about 90 percent effective at preventing infection with the novel coronavirus.
But the efficacy rate will not be publicly released “until the results of the first phase of trials are available,” the tweets said.
The news from China comes just days after Pfizer announced that the vaccine it is developing with German biotechnology firm BioNTech SE “is more than 90 percent effective” at preventing COVID-19, according to an analysis of early data from a large Phase III trial.
And just two days later, the Russian Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow announced that its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine had a 92 percent efficacy rate.
It is important to note that data from the aforementioned Chinese vaccine trial has yet to be publicly released and peer-reviewed by scientists, neither has the data from the latest stages of the Pfizer and Sputnik trials.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
Stock image of a coronavirus vaccine. Chinese state media has reported that a COVID-19 vaccine being developed in the country is around 90 percent effective.iStock
The announcement comes after Pfizer and Russia institute said their vaccines are 90 percent and 92 percent effective respectively.
