The Sunday Mail
Jay Hilotin
THE United Arab Emirates, along with Bahrain, were two of the first Arab countries to approve the Sinopharm shot — and were the first countries to grant full approval to use a Covid-19 vaccine.
Other countries followed suit.
Here’s a closer look into the Sinopharm vaccine and how the UAE leads the world in the fight against the pandemic.
Who produces the Sinopharm vaccine?
Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group (CNBG).
Sinopharm is a Chinese state-owned biotech company based in Beijing.
What is the shot called?
BBIBP-CorV.
Where is it approved for use?
Reuters reported in September that Phase III trials for the Sinopharm shot had been conducted in 10 countries worldwide.
The vaccine has been granted authorisation in China, and several other countries, including the UAE.
Why was the trial of Sinopharm, a Made-in-China vaccine, not done in China itself?
A vaccine trial is best done in places where a pathogen (like SARS-CoV-2) is still most active.
In China, the case numbers had dropped significantly in the third quarter of 2020, due to the strict lockdowns.
Doing a trial there would have made it difficult to obtain any meaningful data at all.
What method was used
to develop the vaccine?
The vaccine is based on an “inactivated” virus.
How does the Sinopharm vaccine trigger an immune response?
Once inside the body, given through intra-muscular injection, some of the inactivated viruses are swallowed up by a type of immune cell called an “antigen-presenting cell”. The antibodies also attach to viral proteins, such as the so-called spike proteins that populate the viral surface.
4HUMANITY
Sinopharm vaccine is the same vaccine used in the ground-breaking 4Humanity’ trials, the first global clinical Phase III trial of an inactivated vaccine to combat Covid-19 (launched in UAE in July last year), and later was officially registered by the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP) on December 9, 2020.
How is the Sinopharm
vaccine made?
The journal Cell explains: to create Sinopharm’s BBIBP-CorV shot, the researchers obtained three variants of the coronavirus from patients in Chinese hospitals.
They picked one of the variants because it was able to multiply quickly in monkey kidney cells grown in bioreactor tanks.
What’s the deal with inactivated virus vaccine?
It is a tried-and-tested platform. Inactivated viruses have been used for over 100 years.
Polio vaccine inventor Jonas Salk used them to create his polio vaccine in the 1950s.
It is the same method used to prepare vaccines against other diseases including rabies and hepatitis A.
Coronaviruses in BBIBP-CorV are literally killed (inactivated) through a chemical process, so they can be injected into your arm without causing Covid-19.
How is the coronavirus used
in the vaccine ‘killed’?
Yes, they are literally killed.
But first, before they’re killed, lab workers produce huge stocks of the coronaviruses in high bio-safety labs.
Once the desired quantities are produced, they are doused with a chemical called “beta-propiolactone”.
What does beta-propiolactone do?
The compound disables the coronaviruses by bonding to their genes.
Therefore, inactivated coronaviruses could no longer replicate.
But their proteins, including spike, are still whole — as in intact — which is useful in prompting response from our body’s immune response via antibodies, T cells and B cells against infectious diseases.
BETA-PROPIOLACTONE
Beta-propiolactone, an organic compound of the lactone family, is used as inactivating reagent for vaccines.
It is also used in tissue grafts, surgical instruments, and enzymes, as a sterilant of blood plasma and as a vapour-phase disinfectant.
What happens next?
Lab technicians scoop the killed viruses out and mix them with a tiny amount of an aluminium-based compound — called an “adjuvant” (adjuvants normally stimulate the immune system to boost its response to a vaccine).
31 000 — the number of volunteers who participated in the Sinopharm trials in the UAE alone, with an additional 7 000 in Bahrain.
Other countries also conducted their own trials, including Morocco, Peru and Argentina.
What is the efficacy rate of the Sinopharm shot?
The UAE, among the first to approve the Sinopharm shot, said the vaccine was 86 percent effective, based on interim results of Phase 3 trials in the Emirates.
The efficacy of the Sinopharm shot in the UAE is based on a trial of 31 000 volunteers, health authorities say.
Is it safe?
Yes. Millions have already received the vaccines in the UAE — 5,5 million, most of them were Sinopharm shots, with no reports of severe reactions or adverse effects.
Chinese media reported on February 20, 2021 that 43 million doses of Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine had been administrated worldwide, of which 34 million were in China.
What did peer-reviewed journals say about earlier trials of the Sinopharm vaccine?
On August 13, 2020, JAMA published the interim results of two randomised Phase 2 clinical trials of the Sinopharm vaccine, and wrote: “This inactivated Covid-19 vaccine had a low rate of adverse reactions and demonstrated immunogenicity.”
Following trial review and the results’ publication, the Chinese approved the vaccine, the first formal green light for a Covid-19 vaccine in the world.
2 BILLION DOSES FROM CHINA – The mainland currently has 18 production lines for Covid-19 vaccines with capacity for 2 billion doses by the end of 2021, and 4 billion by 2022, Feng Duojia, president of the China Vaccine Industry Association, told China Central TV on February 20.
What is the key advantage of the inactivated platform?
Less developed countries with no access to deep-freezing facilities would benefit from this type of vaccine.
They can be transported more easily and at normal fridge temperatures.
By comparison, Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccines, must be kept very cold — -20 °C to -70 °C.
This poses a major logistical challenge, especially in places where power is unreliable or non-existent. Immunisation programmes even in developed countries, like the UK and the US, had been hampered because of the freezing requirement.
Does it offer 100 percent protection from moderate and severe forms of Covid-19?
Yes, according to Abu Dhabi-based chief research officer Dr Walid Abbas Zaher, vaccine project leader of G42 Healthcare.
The jab has an overall efficacy rate is 86 percent.
“Think about the vaccine the same way you are taking the flu vaccine.
“If you are taking the flu vaccine, sometimes you don’t get the flu at all and sometimes you get the flu but in a very mild form.
“Covid-19 at the end of the day is a flu, a very nasty bad flu.
“And the vaccine works in the same way.
“It will either prevent you completely from having the disease or there is a remote chance that you get an infection.
“Even if you get it (infection) after taking the vaccine, you will not feel it.
“Even if you feel it, it will be a very mild flu.”
