Thai health officials try to clear the air amid concern over China's Sinovac vaccine

By The Nation

 

Thailand’s Department of Medical Sciences director-general Dr Supakit Sirilak

 

Health officials organised a press conference to allay widespread concerns that China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine, being imported into Thailand, is not effective enough to tackle the virus.

 

The concerns followed tests in Brazil by that country’s Butantan Institute, with results showing that Sinovac is only 50.4 per cent effective.

 

However, Thailand’s Department of Medical Sciences director-general Dr Supakit Sirilak maintained that a vaccinated group was able to prevent 78 per cent of infections and 100 per cent of severe symptoms.

 

“The advantage of the vaccine from China is that a dead virus is injected into the body to build immunity. This is considered primary technology, which is also used in hepatitis and polio vaccines. China injected its military personnel and thousands of medical staff with the vaccine and no serious side effects were found,” he said.

 

“We need to look at many other aspects too, such as quality, performance, price, quantity, delivery time and other qualifications that are suitable for Thailand,” Dr Supakit insisted.

 

“I want people to be confident that the Public Health Ministry will use a vaccine with recognised quality and without undesirable effects. WHO [the World Health Organisation] has declared that a vaccine efficacy of 50 per cent or more is applicable. So I would like to ask people to stop panicking.

 

“The Public Health Ministry has asked Sinovac for additional information. There is currently no impact on the Covid-19 vaccination plan,” he added.

 

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deputy secretary-general Dr Surachok Tangwiwat said the FDA is responsible for examining drugs and vaccines for use in Thailand. These are first evaluated for quality, safety and efficiency.

 

Those wishing to register a drug or vaccine are required to provide information to experts in order to assess their qualifications and performance.

 

The FDA is now mobilising experts from all over the country to inspect and consider all aspects of a Covid-19 vaccine to make it available faster.

 

At present, two companies have applied to register their vaccines – AstraZeneca (Thailand), whose vaccine is in the evaluation process and expects approval soon, and Sinovac Biotech Company, which has the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation as a licensee for registration.

 

Another key issue is import. The importer must have evidence of purchasing the vaccine directly from the manufacturer to prevent any fakes creeping in and must take responsibility if there is a distribution problem.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30401224

 

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2021-01-14

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

Imo better to vaccinate now with a safe 50% effective vaccine then a 90% safe vaccine a year from now.

The elites will have the Western vaccines. The masses will be lucky if their Sinovac isn't actually a forgery.

14 minutes ago, webfact said:

China injected its military personnel and thousands of medical staff with the vaccine and no serious side effects were found,” he said.

Course not.

Got to make sure CP get their 15% of all the mega profits.

Influenza vaccines are normally 50% effective ?

 

Maybe these harmless Chaps are just being brutally honest with the efficiency 

and the other companies are fudging the #'s.

 

 

So let the Prime Minister and his Cabinet along with the senate and house take it and not the poo farms.

I know who i believe

16 minutes ago, 4reaL said:

Influenza vaccines are normally 50% effective ?

 

Maybe these harmless Chaps are just being brutally honest with the efficiency 

and the other companies are fudging the #'s.

 

 

these 2 being honest ??? where have you been, dream land, such word is not on their vocabulary  555

still, this vax will be used in brazil. It's used since yesterday in indonesia, officials there do think it's efficacy is some 65%.

As astrazeneca is already being approved it would be imported first in small quantities by private hospitals, and at price, probably in thousands.

Pfizer might also be fast tracked, but it would be up to 10k baht.

So  health workers have no choice, but to take sinovac. Nobody else is able to deliver fast 2 mln jabs.

When the larger batch of 800k sinovac arrives to thailand in March, it would be much more clear, how really effective it is.

By then they might change dosage, recommend more than one jab. Producer can twitch vax, depending on mutations in each country, but it takes some 6 weeks before updated production can start.

 

There is probability, that brasilian results are poor, because of the different mutation, than those in china.

 

Most important should be safety of vax, no side effects. Efficacy is now secondary, as there is not much choice.

 

38 minutes ago, webfact said:

China injected its military personnel and thousands of medical staff with the vaccine and no serious side effects were found,” he said.

and sure we will believe anything out of Chinese mouth ????????????????????

Since Thailand has shown such tremendous concern for the safety of its citizens from Covid, there certainly can't be any agenda that would cause those same officials to favor China to curry favor with them could there?  

 

54 minutes ago, webfact said:

“The advantage of the vaccine from China is that a dead virus is injected into the body to build immunity. This is considered primary technology, which is also used in hepatitis and polio vaccines. China injected its military personnel and thousands of medical staff with the vaccine and no serious side effects were found,” he said.

 

China has been busy injecting some of their people with it as lab rats, but China hasn't even approved this vaccine yet for it's own domestic market. This is due to a lack of efficacy and safety data.

It's an absolute joke that it could be getting approval here before approval in it's country of origin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/business/china-coronavirus-vaccine-sinovac.html

Quote

The Chinese Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved the Sinovac vaccine because it is also still awaiting the company's efficiency and safety data in China.

 

18 minutes ago, 2530Ubon said:

 

China has been busy injecting some of their people with it as lab rats, but China hasn't even approved this vaccine yet for it's own domestic market. This is due to a lack of efficacy and safety data.

It's an absolute joke that it could be getting approval here before approval in it's country of origin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/business/china-coronavirus-vaccine-sinovac.html

 

Has it  actually been approved   by the Thai powers that be ?

38 minutes ago, internationalism said:

officials there do think it's efficacy is some 65%.

I do think fish sauce could be 20% effective too! ????

58 minutes ago, 4reaL said:

Influenza vaccines are normally 50% effective ?

 

Maybe these harmless Chaps are just being brutally honest with the efficiency 

and the other companies are fudging the #'s.

 

 

 

Rubbish!

2 minutes ago, PatOngo said:

I do think fish sauce could be 20% effective too! ????

clearly nobody knows know true efficacy of any new vax, so much contradictory figures.

Indonesian authorities quoted many different %, same as brasilian's.

for example atrazeneca is estimated 60-90% efficacy, depending on dosage.

anything above 50% is good enough now, during the second wave.

by April there would much more reliable data from around the world

In my view this is a very cogent response to critics.  The point is it is very effective at preventing serious illness and is unlikely to present with serious side effects as it uses conventional methods. In this respect, efficacy be it 50.4% or an alleged 95% is immaterial. This is about saving old people and the vulnerable from damage, so that we can all get on with our lives as before. The mRNA vaccines are brilliant but impracticable.

26 minutes ago, 2530Ubon said:

 

It's an absolute joke that it could be getting approval here before approval in it's country of origin.

 

Actually not uncommon at all that medications are approved in other countries than the country of origin. Some countries have faster, less strict procedures to approve a medication, others are more rigid.

52 minutes ago, internationalism said:

still, this vax will be used in brazil. It's used since yesterday in indonesia, officials there do think it's efficacy is some 65%.

As astrazeneca is already being approved it would be imported first in small quantities by private hospitals, and at price, probably in thousands.

Pfizer might also be fast tracked, but it would be up to 10k baht.

So  health workers have no choice, but to take sinovac. Nobody else is able to deliver fast 2 mln jabs.

When the larger batch of 800k sinovac arrives to thailand in March, it would be much more clear, how really effective it is.

By then they might change dosage, recommend more than one jab. Producer can twitch vax, depending on mutations in each country, but it takes some 6 weeks before updated production can start.

 

There is probability, that brasilian results are poor, because of the different mutation, than those in china.

 

Most important should be safety of vax, no side effects. Efficacy is now secondary, as there is not much choice.

 

 

Indeed, efficacy reduced to one simple metric is overly simplistic anyway.  

 

Efficacy is also to some extent based on the parameters that are set, which may lead to over-estimates in the case of one or two products.

 

Sinovac will likely prove to be very useful, provided safety can be independently established.

 

 

I am not an anti-vaxxer. I'm fine taking the essential shots for example, but think an annual Flu shot ay my age and fitness level is unnecessary. This 50% efficacy thing from China is something else however. First it was ~90%, now they are saying 50%. So how we can we be sure that's even right? If things turn for the worse, there will be zero accountability, of that we can be sure.

I'm not a fan of big-pharma, but, yeah, nah, I'll be waiting for the UK/German one thanks. By far the lesser of the potential 2 evils here.

1 hour ago, webfact said:

However, Thailand’s Department of Medical Sciences director-general Dr Supakit Sirilak maintained that a vaccinated group was able to prevent 78 per cent of infections and 100 per cent of severe symptoms.

Do they know if vaccinated people have 0% of risk to contaminate non-vaccinated people ?

And that vaccine does also work at 78% with the new variants of the virus ?

 

28 minutes ago, PatOngo said:

I do think fish sauce could be 20% effective too! ????

It is. I rub it under my arm pits and gargle with it every morning -- and am still Coivd-free.

 

A noteworthy side effect is that dearest mother-in-law has finally moved out. Forever. 

37 minutes ago, PatOngo said:

I do think fish sauce could be 20% effective too! ????

Not if you're on a reduced sodium diet.

China injected its military personnel and thousands of medical staff with the vaccine and no serious side effects were found,” he said. Personally, I believe very little what the Chinese Authorities say, including that Covid started in a meat market. They simply cannot be trusted and in my mind, neither can their vaccine program.

First of all, I am not against vaccine.

 

But, since I do know about fake, counterfeit, low quality things from China, I would like to wait for some good quality stuff from Europe.

Second, if the chinese vaccine is so good, why has China imported 100 million doses from Germany and sale their stuff to other countries???

Doesn't make sense, if there stuff is good and reliable. 

Up to them. Since the powerful here have mostly chinese roots, we know all why.

 

Let them.

18 minutes ago, SuwadeeS said:

First of all, I am not against vaccine.

 

But, since I do know about fake, counterfeit, low quality things from China, I would like to wait for some good quality stuff from Europe.

Second, if the chinese vaccine is so good, why has China imported 100 million doses from Germany and sale their stuff to other countries???

Doesn't make sense, if there stuff is good and reliable. 

Up to them. Since the powerful here have mostly chinese roots, we know all why.

 

Let them.

Good idea,Thats why i will take the MODERNA vaccine here in norway.And its free.

My doctor says that the western vaccines will be available in April or May.  There is so much fake medicine around and it is so cleverly packaged that I will wait until my hospital has verified that the vaccine that they receive is real before I get my injection.

57 minutes ago, SuwadeeS said:

Second, if the chinese vaccine is so good, why has China imported 100 million doses from Germany and sale their stuff to other countries???

It cannot be all its cracked up to be as Covid is still rampant in the North of the Country.

I personally never trust anything  that some Salesman tries to sell me when the Specification of what he is trying to sell changes every other Day or so. 

Smacks of a sale at any price to me 

It’s like asking a man to cook for you after he poisoned you.