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Coronavirus pandemic
WorldAmericas

Chile says China’s Sinovac coronavirus vaccine 67 per cent effective against symptomatic infection

  • A Chilean health ministry study also found the shot was 80 per cent effective at preventing deaths from the disease
  • This is the first such evidence showing how well the Chinese jab can protect against Covid-19 after it’s been widely used in a population

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A woman is injected with a dose of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine in Santiago, Chile. File photo: AP
Bloomberg
A Chilean study said Sinovac Biotech Ltd.’s vaccine is 67 per cent effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19 infections and wards off 80 per cent of fatalities from the disease.

This is the first such evidence showing how well the Chinese shot can protect against Covid-19 after it’s been widely used in a population.

The report also said that the Sinovac vaccine was 85 per cent effective against hospitalisation and 89 per cent in preventing people from entering intensive care units.

The Chilean health ministry study followed 10.5 million citizens enrolled in the country’s public health insurance system and included people that had received one dose, two doses and no dose at all. The effectiveness figures were obtained 14 days after the second dose.

The shot developed by the Beijing-based vaccine maker and so far rolled out in more than 30 countries has faced mounting questions about its efficacy, after data emerged from Brazil that showed it had barely crossed the minimum threshold of 50 per cent in preventing the coronavirus and one of its most worrisome mutations.

Countries ranging from Brazil to Indonesia are dependent on Sinovac’s doses to inoculate their populations after the more-effective mRNA vaccines were snapped up mostly by richer nations.

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