The Kingdom of Bahrain has approved China-based healthcare firm Sinopharm Group’s Covid-19 vaccine, media reports said. Bahrain also participated in the Phase III trials with more than 7700 volunteers. The vaccine is now available to frontline healthcare workers in the kingdom.
The National Health Regulatory Authority said in a statement, “Results from phase III clinical trials showed an 86 percent efficacy rate, a 99 percent seroconversion rate of neutralising antibody and 100 percent effectiveness in preventing moderate and severe cases of Covid-19.”
Earlier, the UAE also announced that it has also signed up for Sinopharm’s Covid-19 vaccine. Sinopharm’s vaccine has already been approved for emergency use in a few countries, with the company still continuing late-stage clinical trials in 10 nations.
Last month Sinopharm announced that around 1 million people had been given emergency doses, and only individual patients have had some mild symptoms, according to the company.
Countries such as Egypt, Argentina, Morocco along with the UAE and the Kingdom of Bahrain has already approved Sinopharm’s vaccine so far. It is reported that the vaccine was also has also tested in Peru; however, the government suspended tests due to a serious adverse event that occurred with one of the volunteers.
Elsewhere, US-based drug manufacturing giant Pfizer has reported that its vaccine is 95 percent effective, with Moderna reporting a 94.5 percent efficacy rate for its vaccine candidate.