Topline
Concerns over the effectiveness of China’s Sinovac vaccine continue to grow—Indonesia reported hundreds of outbreaks among medical professionals who took the vaccine and hard-hit Costa Rica declined to use it for fear it won’t work—the latest stumbling block for China’s global vaccination drive as heavily vaccinated countries deploying its two flagship vaccines face some of the world’s worst outbreaks.
Concerns over the effectiveness of China’s Sinovac vaccine continue to grow—Indonesia reported hundreds of outbreaks among medical professionals who took the vaccine and hard-hit Costa Rica declined to use it for fear it won’t work—the latest stumbling block for China’s global vaccination drive as heavily vaccinated countries deploying its two flagship vaccines face some of the world’s worst outbreaks.
Key Facts
More than 350 doctors and medical professionals have contracted Covid-19 in Indonesia despite the majority of healthcare workers having been immunized with Sinovac, officials said Thursday, just over a month after officials praised the shot for wiping out the disease among health workers.
Dozens of these were hospitalized, officials added, leading experts to question the effectiveness of the Chinese shot, particularly against the infectious Delta variant fueling the country’s outbreak.
On Wednesday, Costa Rica, in the midst of a severe Covid-19 outbreak, rejected a delivery of the Sinovac vaccine after health officials, examining clinical data, decided it was not effective enough.
These incidents add to growing concerns surrounding the efficacy of Chinese-made vaccines as fierce outbreaks tear through some of the most vaccinated nations, many of which relied heavily on China’s flagship Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines for inoculation campaigns.
While both vaccines have been granted emergency authorization by the World Health Organization, Sinovac’s 51% efficacy only just exceeds the WHO’s 50% efficacy threshold for Covid-19 vaccines and a lack of public clinical data to back up manufacturers’ often inconsistent claims hampers public acceptance of the vaccine.
