The people of China are about to welcome a new vaccine for Covid-19. Experts estimate that the vaccine developed in China may be the most effective. In large trials, it has shown 79 percent effectiveness against the highly infectious delta variant and 67 percent against any severity of Covid-19.
The protein-based vaccine candidate has been developed by Cheng’s Clover Pharma Company. Vaccine expert from Guangzhou told Global Times that vaccine candidate SCB-2019 is the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine that has proved effective against all three mutations (delta, gamma and mu). Clover’s candidate deploys proteins on the coronavirus to induce immunity against Covid. According to the company, the efficacy of the vaccine was 92 percent against the gamma variant and 59 percent against the mu variant.
The company will submit test data in the fourth quarter of 2021 for conditional approval from the World Health Organization, Chinese regulators and the European Union. A total of 207 symptomatic cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the test at least two weeks after the second dose. A company representative said that out of the total cases, 52 were from the experimental vaccine immunization group and the remaining 155 were from the placebo group.
He did genetic sequencing on 146 cases and three major variants delta, gamma and mu variants. “We are pleased that the vaccine candidate SCB-2019 has successfully shown efficacy against the major delta strain and other worrying variants globally,” Clover’s chief executive officer said in a statement.
The vaccines from Beijing’s Sinovac and the state-run Sinopharm are the most widely used in other parts of the world and China, with efficacy rates ranging from 50 percent to 80 percent in preventing symptoms of Covid. Sinopharm and Sinovac have provided little conclusive data on the efficacy of the vaccine against the delta variant. According to Clover, Spectra clinical trials were conducted on 30,000 adult and older participants in 31 locations in five countries including the Philippines, Brazil, Colombia, South Africa and Belgium.