Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan on Monday said that CanSino Biologics Inc’s coronavirus shot has an efficacy rate of 65.7% at preventing symptomatic cases based on multi-country analysis, making it the latest vaccine candidate to show protection against Covid-19.
He said that the interim analysis by the Independent Data Monitoring Committee showed 90.98% efficacy at preventing severe disease.
“Clinical trial data (phase-3) of a one-dose Ad5-nCoV vaccine for Covid (Cansino Bio) received. Interim analysis by the Independent Data Monitoring Committee shows 65.7% efficacy at preventing symptomatic cases and 90.98% at preventing severe disease (multicountry analysis),” the SAPM said in a tweet from his official handle.
He said that efficacy at preventing symptomatic cases is 74.8% and 100% at preventing severe disease in the Pakistani subset of the trial.
“The IDMC didn’t report any serious safety concerns. Data incld 30,000 participants & 101 virologically confmd COVID cases. Well done Pak team for conducting this trial,” he said in another tweet. CanSino later forwarded Dr Sultan’s announcement in a statement.
A vaccine needs to afford at least a 50% protection rate to be considered effective, as mandated by the world’s leading drug regulators and the World Health Organization.
Ad5-nCoV is a candidate vaccine co-developed by CanSino Biologics and a Chinese military-backed research unit.
Earlier today, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) donated Covid-19 vaccines to Pakistan’s armed forces, according to a statement released by the Inter-Services Public Relations Director General (DG ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar.
This is the first such donation made by the PLA to a foreign military service, the statement read. However, the DG ISPR announced that “keeping with the Pakistan Armed Forces’ traditional spirit of ‘nation comes first, always and every time’” it has been decided to donate the vaccines to frontline health workers as they are the ‘real heroes’ of the pandemic.
“Pakistan’s armed forces extend their deepest gratitude to PLA and People’s Republic of China for this magnanimous donation during testing times,” the statement further said.
The donation comes a week after the first batch of the Covid-19 vaccine, also donated by China, arrived in Pakistan. The 500,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine were donated by Chinese President Xi Jinping and arrived at the Nur Khan Airbase with the help of a Pakistan Air Force aircraft.
