Much like pearls in bubble tea, the more vaccines you have, the better.
As you already know, there are two vaccines currently authorised for use in Singapore: Moderna’s and Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine. Both have similar efficacy rates as well as side effects.
If everything goes as planned, however, we could soon have three vaccines to choose from here.
Gan Kim Yong Says Sinovac’s COVID-19 Vaccine is Still Being Evaluated for Use in S’pore
Singapore received its first shipment of Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine from China in February, but it’s still being assessed for use here, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said in Parliament yesterday (11 May).
On 24 March, Mr Gan said the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) had asked Sinovac for more detailed data in order to properly evaluate the vaccine.
He added that Singapore had entered into advance purchase agreements with several pharmaceutical companies—including Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Sinovac—last year even before clinical trials for the vaccines were completed.
This was done to ensure that the country would have a diversified vaccine portfolio, and to increase Singapore’s chances of securing a safe and effective vaccine.
“This was how we managed to start our vaccination drive with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines early,” he said.
But Sinovac, along with other unnamed vaccines, “are still being carefully evaluated by HSA,” he said.
“The public will be updated when progress has been made.”
Performed Far Better in Real World Than in Clinical Trials
The main reason why there’s hesitance over the Sinovac vaccine is that it performed far worse than western vaccines like Moderna’s and Pfizer’s in clinical trials.
However, it seems to be doing really well in the real world.
A real world study conducted in Indonesia which tracked 25,374 health workers in Jakarta for 28 days produced some extremely encouraging findings.
The vaccine was found to have protected 100% of them from death and 96% from hospitalisation as soon as seven days after their second dose. What’s more, 94% of the workers had been protected against infection.
There was “a very, very drastic drop” in hospitalisations and deaths among medical workers, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said.
And in Chile, another country which uses Sinovac’s vaccine, 89% of those vaccinated were protected from serious illness that requires intensive care.
The vaccine’s efficacy rate may differ from country to country due to the emergence of COVID-19 variants, but Sinovac’s vaccine appears to be doing well against the new strains.
So, despite the controversy over a lack of transparency and mediocre results from clinical trials, Sinovac’s vaccine may be more effective than we believe.
Feature Image: rafapress / Shutterstock.com
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