CoronaVac – Pakistan approves third Chinese Covid vaccine for emergency use

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has approved the emergency use of the third Chinese Covid vaccine, CoronaVac, the country’s top health authority confirmed Thursday.

The registration board of Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan in its 304th meeting approved this vaccine.

The National Institute of Health said that the authorisation of this Covid vaccine will be reviewed every quarter keeping in view data regarding the safety, efficacy, and quality of the vaccine.

With the addition of this vaccine, Pakistan now has five approved Covid vaccines. CoronaVac, which is developed by Chinese company Sinovac Biotech, is an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine that has an effectiveness of around 51 percent.

This new vaccine has reportedly low effectiveness as compared to other vaccines, but the government allowed its emergency use to broaden its vaccination drive. As per the World Health Organisation the threshold for vaccine efficiency needs to be around 50 percent or above.

Earlier, Pakistan granted two-dose Sinopharm and single-dose Convidecia vaccine developed by the Cansino Biologicals Inc. UK’s AstraZeneca and Russian Sputnik V vaccines have also been approved by the health authorities.