BEIJING (Reuters) – The China National Biotec Group (CNBG) administered more than 4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine on January 4 through China’s emergency use program, the company said on Thursday night.
Two vaccines, respectively, from two institutes belonging to the CNBG, a unit of the National Pharmaceutical Group of China (Sinopharm), are included in China’s emergency vaccination scheme, which was officially started in July targeting specific groups of people facing a high risk infection.
“No serious adverse reactions have been reported in the large-scale emergency use of Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccines,” said CNBG on the Chinese social network WeChat.
A total of 72,000 people were abroad after receiving emergency jabs from China, including about 40% of more than 5,000 employees on a project by a Chinese company based in Pakistan, said CNBG.
None of the vaccinated diplomats, representatives of international organizations or employees of Chinese companies, who went to countries at high risk for the virus, contracted the COVID-19 disease caused by the new coronavirus, despite close contact with infected residents, the CNBG said.
The company did not break down the number of doses for each of the two vaccines used in the emergency program.
In addition to the two CNBG vaccines, China’s emergency use program also includes a potential injection of Sinovac Biotech. A fourth CanSino Biologics candidate has been approved for use by Chinese military personnel.
The vaccine at the CNBG unit, the Beijing Biological Products Institute, was approved in China for wider use among the general public last year. The two-dose regimen is 79.34% effective against the disease, according to provisional analyzes of advanced clinical trials abroad.
Although the protection rate of the CNBG vaccine is less than the efficacy of more than 90% of vaccines from Moderna Inc or Pfizer Inc and its partner BioNTech SE, it can be transported and stored at less demanding temperatures.
(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Ryan Woo; Editing by Hugh Lawson)