South Africa approves China’s Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s health minister said on Saturday that authorities had approved China’s Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine for domestic use, as the country faces a crippling third wave of infections that has paralysed hospitals and brought its death toll to 60,000.

“I would like to express gratitude to our regulatory authority for their sense of urgency, which included reducing turnaround time to process applications for registration of … (the) COVID-19 vaccine,” Acting Minister of Health Mamoloko Kubayi said in a statement.

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In June 2020, Sinovac’s CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine became the first vaccine approved for emergency use in China and was further approved for conditional marketing use on February 5th, 2021.

On April 1, 2021, the third phase of a CoronaVac bulk production manufacturing facility was completed and began operations, allowing the annual production capacity to exceed 2 billion doses. At this time, SINOVAC has provided CoronaVac to nearly 40 countries and regions, including mainland China, directly and indirectly.

On June 1, 2021, the World Health Organization approved the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use as it became the second Chinese jab to receive the WHO’s green light after Sinopharm.

Vaccine efficacy results showed that the vaccine prevented symptomatic disease in 51% of those vaccinated and prevented severe COVID-19 and hospitalisation in 100% of the studied population, the WHO had said.

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