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Coronavirus: Sinovac is world’s most used vaccine, but how good is its Delta protection?
- Chinese-made shots have prevented much hospitalisation and death, but experts want to know more on effectiveness against variant
- Demands for further research in Indonesia where deaths are rising, including among health care workers
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Sinovac Biotech’s coronavirus vaccine has become the most used in the world, with over 943 million doses delivered worldwide.
By the end of the year there could be more than 2.9 billion doses of the Chinese-developed vaccine made, according to the London-based science information and analytics firm, Airfinity, on Wednesday.
But while the vaccine has been shown to protect against the disease and hospitalisation in clinical and real-world studies around the world, experts are calling for more information on how well it works against the Delta variant and whether booster shots will be needed to enhance protection.
Such questions have come to the fore in Indonesia, which has relied largely on the Sinovac vaccine and is battling its worst surge of Covid-19 cases yet, fuelled by the more transmissible variant.
An independent group there tracking virus data has discovered that more than 130 health care workers have died of Covid-19 since June, with 58 of those deaths having occurred this month.
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The group, LaporCovid-19, whose data comes from professional medical associations and community sources, did not have a breakdown of how many of these were fully vaccinated.
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