Bahrain Approves COVID-19 Vaccine From China for Public Use
It was on Sunday when Bahrain announced that it approved a Chinese COVID-19 vaccine for public use. The island kingdom has already approved various vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech which is its German partner.
The state-run news agency from Bahrain has stated that we have approved the Sinopharm vaccine. However, the news offered little details on the study results of the vaccine which they approved.
Bahrain came just in line with its neighbor, United Arab Emirates, which approved the same vaccine by stating that it is 86% effective.
The Emirati announcement also didn’t provide many details on the results but stated that the vaccine is efficient for public use. In another statement, Kuwait also approved the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer.
Over 7,700 people applied for the trial of the Sinopharm vaccine on a volunteer basis in Bahrain. The country didn’t share the results of this study but just approved the use of the vaccine. Bahrain already said that they will give a free vaccine to the public.
The Chinese company is still conducting clinical trials of the last-stage in nearly 10 countries. However, some countries have already approved it seeing the positive initial results.
One of those countries is Morocco, which has already crafted a plan to vaccinate its masses using the Sinopharm vaccine. The country has the ambition to vaccinate around 80% of its population with a program that starts this month. Thus, Morocco will be the first country to available the Sinopharm vaccine tothe public.
Chinese vaccine relies on a tested technology that man earlier used for vaccination. In this method, they transfer a killed virus in the human body and develop immunization against it. This was the same method that we used in Polio vaccines.
Pfizer and other countries are relying on a newer technology which they claim are more effective. They are targeting the spike protein of coronavirus using RNA. The only problem with this technology is that it is less-proven and the COVID vaccine will be its first widespread use.
UK has started vaccinating its masses from Pfizer vaccine while the US will soon follow the same. FDA has approved it and the company will start providing vaccines for the public.
Pfizer reported that its vaccine is 95% effective against the virus making it more effective than the Sinopharm vaccine.
Sophia has done Masters’s in Mass Communication from Delhi University, India. She is a qualified new reporter and a columnist as well. She worked sometimes for BenjaNews as well.