The government has granted emergency use authorization for the vaccine developed by Chinese manufacturer Sinopharm.
The Department of Drug Administration issuing a statement has revealed that the vaccine manufactured by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products under Sinopharm has been granted emergency use authorization as per the department's decision taken on Tuesday.
The government on January 15 had granted emergency use authorization for Covishield vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute of India before the southern neighbor announced delivery of one million doses.
The government has started vaccination campaign with the Covishield vaccines and the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday decided to send advance money to the Indian manufacturer Serum Institute to procure two million COVID-19 vaccines.
The Chinese government has also decided to provide 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine in grant. The emergency use authorization has been granted before delivery of the Chinese vaccines
The Chinese vaccine developed by Sinopharm is also a two-dose vaccine like the Indian one and has already got conditional marketing approval in China with more than 24 million doses administered by January 31.
The vaccine has got licenses for marketing or approval for emergency use in 13 foreign countries including Pakistan, UAE, Egypt and Hungary, the Chinese Embassy recently said issuing a statement.
"After a two-dose inoculation procedure, the vaccine shows 79.34% efficacy against COVID-19, and the seroconversion rate of neutralizing antibodies reached 99.52%," the statement read. "The safety and effectiveness of the vaccine has surpassed the marketing standards of the World Health Organization, and received wide recognition by other countries."
