ISLAMABAD: PM’s Special Assistant on Health Dr Faisal Sultan has announced that China’s CanSinoBio COVID-19 vaccine showed 74.8 percent efficacy in preventing symptomatic cases and a 100 percent success rate in stopping severe disease among Pakistanis.
In a series of tweets today (Monday), the special assistant, citing the Independent Data Monitoring Committee’s report, in the global trials, the efficacy of the vaccine at preventing symptomatic cases was 65.7pc and 90.98pc at preventing severe disease.
The SAPM said that the IDMC did not report any serious safety concerns and that the data included as many as 30,000 participants and 101 people who had tested positive for coronavirus.
In the Pakistani subset, efficacy at preventing symptomatic cases is 74.8% & 100% at preventing severe disease.
The IDMC didn’t report any serious safety concerns. Data incld 30,000 participants & 101 virologically confmd COVID cases
Well done Pak team for conducting this trial
— Faisal Sultan (@fslsltn) February 8, 2021
The CanSinoBIO vaccine is being tested in Pakistan, Mexico, Russia, Argentina and Chile, according to clinical trial registration data, and the company has supply deals with some of those countries, including Mexico.
At the beginning of February, China’s CanSino Biologics had said that an independent committee found the drugmaker’s COVID-19 vaccine met its pre-specified primary safety and efficacy targets under an interim analysis of Phase-three trial data.
Back in November 2020, officials said Pakistan had inoculated about 7,000 of the 10,000 phase-three trial participants. Pakistan has approved two coronavirus vaccines – AstraZeneca and Sinopharm — while the vaccination drive kicked off last week across the country.
