China okays first homegrown vaccine for coronavirus

BEIJING: China has approved its first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine for general use, marking the addition of another vaccine as the virus surges back around the world.

The two-dose vaccine from state-owned Sinopharm is the first approved in China. The go-ahead comes shortly after the country launched a program to vaccinate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year holiday in February.

It also comes one day after British regulators authorized AstraZeneca's inexpensive and easy-to-handle vaccine.


Sinopharm says preliminary data from last-stage trials had shown the vaccine to be 79.3% effective. Experts say data such as the size of the control group and how many were vaccinated is missing.

Sinopharm is one of at least five Chinese developers in a global race to create vaccines for the coronavirus, which has killed more than 1.8 million people worldwide. China has reported 4,782 deaths.