中國Covid疫苗：國藥疫苗獲得世界衛生組織批准

Recently Yahoo New on-line reported the following:

Chinese Covid vaccine: Sinopharm gets WHO approval

BBC Fri., May 7, 2021, 8:52 a.m.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has granted emergency approval for the Covid vaccine made by Chinese firm Sinopharm.

It is the first vaccine developed in a non-Western country to get WHO backing.

China has already vaccinated millions of people at home and in 45 other countries.

Until now, the WHO had only approved the vaccines made by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna.

However, individual health regulators in various countries - especially poorer ones in Africa, Latin America and Asia - have already approved the Chinese jabs for emergency use.

With little data released internationally early on, the effectiveness of the various Chinese vaccines has long been uncertain.

Brazilian trials of another vaccine, Sinovac, for instance, showed an efficacy rate of around 50.4%, which is barely over the 50% threshold needed for approval by the WHO.

Other trials in Turkey and Indonesia have indicated a higher efficacy rate though.

Why does WHO backing matter?

The green light from the global health body is a guideline for national regulators that a vaccine is safe and effective.

It also means that the vaccine can be used in the global Covax programme, which aims to provide about two billion vaccines to developing countries.

The decision to list the Chinese vaccine for emergency use would give a substantial boost to Covax, which is currently crippled by supply shortages, mostly caused by India halting the export of vaccines.

It has only been able to deliver about 50 million doses so far.

The vaccine made by Sinovac, called CoronaVac, has only been fully authorised for use by China, but the government has already shipped millions of doses to a number of countries, which have permitted its emergency usage.

In Asia, the biggest recipients of the vaccine are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan, while in the Americas, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador have ordered millions of the jabs.

In Europe, Turkey and Ukraine have signed large contracts for Sinovac.

The vaccine is also thought to be particularly important for African countries, where so far Zimbabwe, Somalia, Djibouti, Benin and Tunisia have received vaccines from China.

One of the Chinese vaccines' main advantages is that they can be stored in a standard refrigerator at 2-8 degrees Celsius, like the AztraZeneca vaccine.

How do the Chinese shots work?

The two Chinese vaccines differ significantly from some of the other Covid vaccines currently in use, especially those by Pfizer and Moderna.

Developed in a more traditional way, they are so-called inactivated vaccines, which means they use killed viral particles to expose the immune system to the virus without risking a serious disease response.

By comparison, the BioNtech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA vaccines. This means part of the coronavirus' genetic code is injected into the body, training the immune system how to respond to it.

The UK's AstraZeneca vaccine is yet another type of vaccine where a version of a common cold virus from chimpanzees is modified to contain genetic material shared by the coronavirus. Once injected, it teaches the immune system how to fight the real virus.

BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna have an efficacy rate of around 90% or higher, while the AstraZeneca jab is thought to be around 76%.

In April, China's top disease control official said the efficacy of the country's Covid vaccines was low, although he later insisted his comments had been misinterpreted.

Translation

世界衛生組織（WHO）已緊急批准了由中國國藥集團 (Sinopharm) 生產的Covid疫苗。

它是在非西方國家開發的首個獲得世衛組織支持的疫苗。

中國已經在國內和其他45個國家/地區為數百萬人接種了疫苗。

迄今為止，世界衛生組織僅批准了輝瑞，阿斯利康，強生和莫德納公司生產的疫苗。

但是，各個國家（尤其是非洲，拉丁美洲和亞洲較貧窮的國家）的個人衛生監管機構已經批准將中國針葯用於緊急用途。

由於在以前國際上很少公佈任何數據，因此各種中國疫苗的有效性一直不確定。

例如，巴西對另一種中國疫苗Sinovac的試驗顯示，其有效率為50.4％左右，僅略高於WHO批准所需的50％門檻。

但在土耳其和印度尼西亞的其他試驗, 則表明其有較高的療效。

為什麼世衛組織的支持很重要？

全球衛生機構的綠燈為國家監管機構提供了疫苗的安全及效能作出指引。

這也意味著該疫苗可用於全球Covax計劃，該計劃旨在為發展中國家提供約20億劑疫苗。

將中國疫苗列為緊急用途的決定, 將大大促進Covax的發展，目前由於供應短缺而使Covax癱瘓，主要原因是印度停止了疫苗出口。

到目前為止，它只能輸送約5000萬劑。

Sinovac公司生產的名為CoronaVac的疫苗僅在中國獲得的完全授權使用。但中國政府已向數個國家運送了數百萬劑疫苗，這些國家允許其緊急使用。

在亞洲，最大的疫苗接收者是印度尼西亞，馬來西亞，菲律賓，泰國和巴基斯坦。而在美洲，巴西，墨西哥，智利，哥倫比亞和厄瓜多爾訂購了數以百萬計的針藥。

在歐洲，土耳其和烏克蘭已與Sinovac簽訂了大型合同。

人們還認為該疫苗對非洲國家特別重要，到目前為止，津巴布韋，索馬里，吉布提，貝寧和突尼斯已經從中國接收了疫苗。

中國疫苗的主要優勢之一是，與AztraZeneca疫苗一樣，它們可以存儲在2-8攝氏度的標準冰箱中。

中國藥針接種如何運作？

這兩種中國疫苗與目前正在使用的其他Covid疫苗有顯著差異，尤其是輝瑞 (BioNtech/Pfizer) 和莫德納 (Moderna) 生產的那些。

中國疫苗以更傳統的方式開發，即所謂的滅活疫苗。這意味著它們使用殺滅的病毒顆粒將免疫系統暴露於病毒，而不會冒嚴重的疾病反應的風險。

相比之下，輝瑞和莫德納疫苗是mRNA疫苗。這意味著冠狀病毒的部分遺傳密碼被注入人體，訓練免疫系統如何對其作出反應。

英國的阿斯利康疫苗是另一種疫苗，它是對黑猩猩的一種普通感冒病毒進行了修改，使其含有冠狀病毒共有的遺傳物質。一旦注射，它就會教免疫系統如何抵抗真正的病毒。

輝瑞和莫德納的有效率約為90％或更高，而阿斯利康的針藥效率則約為76％。

今年4月，中國最高疾病控制官員表示，中國的Covid疫苗的功效較低，儘管他後來堅持認為他的評論是被誤解了。

              So, the World Health Organization (WHO) has granted emergency approval to the Covid vaccine made by Chinese firm Sinopharm. This will give the vaccine an official status globally.