China’s CanSino vaccine has become the second Chinese COVID-19 vaccine to be approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan for emergency use in the country.
Special Assistant to the Pakistani Prime Minister on Health Faisal Sultan and the CanSino Biologics Inc. confirmed it to Xinhua on Friday.
On Monday, Sultan said that the third phase trials of the CanSino vaccine shows that it is 74.8 per cent efficient in preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19 in the country.
Sharing results of the trials in Pakistan on Twitter, Sultan said the COVID-19 vaccine proved 100 per cent efficient at preventing severe disease in Pakistan.
The trials were conducted at five different sites in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, the major cities of Pakistan, and the volunteers belonged to different social circles.
Sultan further said that the interim analysis by an independent data monitoring committee also said that the vaccine showed 65.7 per cent efficacy at preventing symptomatic cases.
Also it reports 90.98 per cent at preventing severe disease in multi-country analysis, adding that the committee did not report any serious safety concerns regarding the vaccine.
Earlier in January, Pakistan approved China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use after evaluating its safety and quality.
Pakistan officially launched its vaccination drive on Feb. 3, after receiving China-gifted COVID-19 vaccines.
Pakistan has so far reported 560,363 confirmed cases with 12,218 deaths due to the disease, according to the data released by the country’s health ministry on Friday.(Xinhua/NAN)
