CanSinoBio's COVID vaccine 74.8% effective, says Dr Faisal Sultan

China's CanSinoBio COVID-19 vaccine is nearly 75% effective against the virus in Pakistan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan said Monday.

The PM's aide, citing data from the  Independent Data Monitoring Committee's report, said that during the vaccine's Phase-III trials, it had turned out to be 74.8% effective against the virus, while it also showed 100% effectiveness in preventing severe disease — for Pakistan.

Meanwhile, according to the data from multiple countries the IDMC's report said that the vaccine was 65.7% and 90.98% effective in preventing symptomatic cases and severe diseases, respectively.

The special assistant said that the report did not cite report any “serious safety concerns” and that the data included as many as 30,000 participants and 101 people who had tested positive for coronavirus.

At the beginning of February, CanSino had said that an independent committee found the drugmaker’s COVID-19 vaccine met its pre-specified primary safety and efficacy targets under an interim analysis of Phase-three trial data.

No adverse events related to the vaccine have occurred and the findings of the IDMC means the company could go ahead with advancing its Phase-three clinical trial for the candidate, CanSinoBio said.

Back in November 2020, officials said Pakistan had inoculated about 7,000 of the 10,000 phase-three trial participants.

Pakistan has approved two coronavirus vaccines – AstraZeneca and Sinopharm — while the vaccination drive kicked off last week across the country.

Pakistan will administer the vaccine in three phases, starting with front-line healthcare workers.