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Chinese coronavirus vaccines
ChinaScience

UAE approves use of China’s Sinopharm vaccine for children aged 3 and over

  • Emergency use authorisation comes after clinical trials and extensive evaluations, with details to be released later
  • China expanded its Sinopharm vaccination drive to under-18s in July

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Boxes of Sinopharm vaccine seen during a vaccination drive at the Guru Nanak Darbar Gurudwara (Sikh temple) in Dubai on February 28. Photo: AFP
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A Covid-19 vaccine developed by China’s state-owned Sinopharm has been approved for children as young as three by the United Arab Emirates.

“[The Ministry of Health and Prevention] announced the provision of Sinopharm vaccine for the age group 3 – 17,” the UAE’s National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority tweeted on Monday.

“The decision comes after clinical trials and extensive evaluations and is based on the emergency use authorisation and local evaluations which are in line with the approved regulations,” it added.

The UAE in June launched a trial on 900 children of different nationalities, including members of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, to monitor their immune response to the vaccine “in preparation to vaccinate children in the near future,” the Abu Dhabi media office said. The study’s preliminary results will be announced once they are available.

As of Sunday, almost 80 per cent of the UAE’s roughly 10 million people had received one vaccine dose while 70 per cent were fully vaccinated.

In May, the UAE announced it would offer a booster shot to recipients of the Sinopharm vaccine six months after their initial two-dose regimen, amid concerns about an insufficient antibody response and questions over the vaccine’s efficacy.
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