Harare, (New Ziana) – The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday approved the Chinese manufactured, Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use.
The designation means the vaccine meets international standards for safety, efficacy and manufacturing.
The vaccine is produced by the Beijing-based pharmaceutical company Sinovac.
Sinovac becomes the eighth Covid-19 vaccine to be listed for emergency use by WHO after Pfizer/BioNTech, Astrazeneca-SK Bio, Serum Institute of India, Astra Zeneca EU, Janssen, Moderna and Sinopharm.
The vaccine, is one of the four that Zimbabwe is has approved and is currently using for its Covid-19 vaccination programme.
“The Sinovac-CoronaVac product is an inactivated vaccine. Its easy storage requirements make it very manageable and particularly suitable for low-resource settings,” WHO said.
The global health body recommended the vaccine for use in adults 18 years and older, in a two-dose schedule with a spacing of two to four weeks.
“Vaccine efficacy results showed that the vaccine prevented symptomatic disease in 51 percent of those vaccinated and prevented severe COVID-19 and hospitalization in 100 percent of the studied population,” WHO said.
Zimbabwe has to date vaccinated nearly 680 000 people after the country received about two million doses of Sinopharm, Sinovac and Covaxin from India.
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