JAKARTA – Corona vaccine makers in China are considering mixing the vaccines they produce. Booster injections are also being considered to increase protection against Corona.
Quoted from Channel News Asia, Sinovac and Sinopharm, two of China’s leading vaccine manufacturers, said they were considering combining their vaccine with vaccines from other companies.
In early April, the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, Gao Fu, said that the current vaccine offers low protection against the coronavirus and mixing it is one of the strategies being considered to increase its effectiveness.
Gao recently tried to backtrack on his statement, claiming he was discussing improving vaccine efficacy in general.
The head of China National Biotech Group’s International Cooperation, Li Meng, said the company had future plans for “sequencing” their vaccine. China National Biotech Group is a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm.
Meanwhile, Sinovac, which is a private company headquartered in Beijing, said it was in the early stages of discussions with the authorities, including the Chinese Center for Disease Control, on combining doses of their vaccine, CoronaVac, with other companies’ products.
The Sinopharm vaccine, from the Beijing Institute of Biological Products and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, has an efficacy of 79 percent and 72 percent effective, respectively. But the company hasn’t publicly disclosed more data from the final stages of its clinical trials.
The practice of combining vaccines is also being considered in other countries. British scientists are studying a combination injection of AstraZeneca and Pfizer. The study also looked to test for different intervals between doses, four weeks and 12 weeks. (E-4)
–
