RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A number of countries are now experiencing new outbreaks of Covid-19 despite maintaining high vaccination rates of mostly Chinese-made vaccines, suggesting that these drugs may not be as effective in the fight against the coronavirus and its new variants, The New York Times said Wednesday, June 23.
The newspaper conducted an investigation based on Covid-19 infection data in a number of countries that have mostly used Chinese vaccines, such as the Seychelles, Mongolia and Chile.
Mongolia promised its people a “Covid-free summer.” Bahrain said there would be a “return to normal life.” The tiny island nation of the Seychelles aimed to revive its economy, The New York Times says.
All three placed their faith, at least partly, in easily accessible Chinese-made vaccines, which would enable them to implement ambitious vaccination programs when much of the world lacked them. But instead of being free of the coronavirus, all three countries have recently experienced rebound infections.
China launched its vaccine diplomacy campaign last year by pledging to supply a safe and effective injection to prevent severe cases of Covid-19. At the time, how successful this and other vaccines would be in curbing transmission was less certain.
Now, examples from several countries suggest that Chinese vaccines may not be very effective in preventing the spread of the virus, particularly the new variants.
These countries’ experiences expose a harsh reality facing the post-pandemic world: the degree of recovery may hinge on the vaccines that governments administer to their citizens, The New York Times notes.
In Seychelles, Chile, Bahrain and Mongolia, 50% to 68% of the population has been fully immunized, surpassing the United States, according to Our World in Data calculations.
All 4 ranked among the 10 countries with the worst Covid outbreaks last week, the U.S. newspaper notes. And all 4 primarily use vaccines made by two Chinese pharmaceutical companies, Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech.
“If the vaccines were good enough, we shouldn’t see this pattern,” said Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong.
In the United States, about 45% of the population is fully immunized, primarily with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. Cases have dropped by 94% in 6 months.
Israel used Pfizer vaccines and has the second-highest vaccination rate in the world, after the Seychelles. The number of new daily confirmed coronavirus cases per million inhabitants in Israel is now about 4.95.
In Seychelles, which relied mainly on Sinopharm, that figure exceeds 716 cases per million.
Such disparities could create a world in which 3 types of countries emerge from the pandemic: the wealthy nations that used their resources to secure the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the poorer countries that are far from immunizing most citizens, and finally those that are fully vaccinated but only partially protected, argues The New York Times.
China, as well as the more than 90 nations that have received vaccines from the country, may end up in the third group, struggling with this pandemic for months to come.
Source: Infobae