Nearly one million people have taken an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) through the country’s emergency use programme, the firm said late on Wednesday.
China launched the emergency use programme in July, which so far includes three vaccine candidates for essential workers and other limited groups of people even as clinical studies have yet to be completed to prove their safety and efficacy.
No serious adverse reaction has been reported from those who received the vaccine in emergency use, Sinopharm said in an article on social media WeChat, citing Chairman Liu Jingzhen from a recent media interview.
It’s unclear which vaccine Liu referred to, and Sinopharm was not immediately available to comment.
Sinopharm’s vaccines, which use inactivated virus unable to replicate in human cells to trigger immune responses, require two doses, clinical trial registration data showed.
Among construction project employees, diplomats and students who went abroad after taking Sinopharm’s vaccine, no one has been infected, it added.
But experts have cautioned against using data solely from emergency use programme, without comparable results from a clinical trial-standard control group, to determine a vaccine’s effectiveness.