After A Week, The Effectiveness Of The Sinovac COVID-19 Vaccine In Brazil Dropped Away

COVID-19 vaccine illustration. (Hakan Nural / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The COVID-19 vaccine alerted by Sinovac Biotech is back in the spotlight, after the results of the latest Sinovac vaccine effectiveness test in Brazil were only 50.38 percent, far from the previous test results, as announced by the Government of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Previously, the vaccine's effectiveness rate was 78 percent. This raises questions about the correctness of the data, as well as questions about the transparency of vaccines from China.

In fact, this figure is the lowest in Brazil, compared to other vaccines. This could affect international confidence in the Sinovac vaccine.

"Regarding the overall effectiveness of the analysis, we meet the requirements of the World Health Organization by 50.38%," said Ricardo Palacios, Medical Director for Clinical Research of the Butantan Biomedical Center, Sao Paulo, according to CNN.

The Brazilian Ministry of Health is said to be conducting an evaluation of this result, through the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA).

Separately, Yanzhong Huang, senior researcher on global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States, said the effectiveness of Sinovac's Coronavac, which was only 50.38 percent, made him both surprised and disappointing.

This is because the effectiveness rate is far from other vaccines, such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which have an efficacy rate of around 95 percent, Russia's Sputnik V vaccine 91 percent, and the British vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca with 70 percent.

In fact, in China alone this vaccine is inferior to the vaccine developed by the state-owned company, Sinopharm, whose effectiveness reaches 79.34 percent.

"The Sinovac vaccine can still be used to help reduce stress on the health care system, reducing the potential for death, given its high effectiveness for moderate and severe cases," Huang explained.