Sinopharm - The African Mirror

Sep

2021

Nigeria prioritising four COVID-19 vaccines

NIGERIA is prioritising the AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, the official heading Nigeria's COVID-19 vaccination campaign has said, when asked whether the Sinopharm shot would be used in the country. Dr Faisal Shuaib, head of Nigeria's primary healthcare agency, said the Sinopharm vaccine had been approved by the national medicines regulator "for emergency use", but rolling it out was not a priority. "We don't want a situation where we may have 10, 20 vaccines that have been globally recognised or listed for emergency use, and then you want to take all 20 vaccines to Nigeria, it doesn't…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Vaccine-starved Namibia receives boost

COVID-19

NAMIBIA, whose COVID-19 inoculation programme was halted by a lack of vaccines, has received a boost with the arrival of 250,000 Sinopharm doses bought from China. Namibia has temporarily suspended delivering shots at major vaccination centres across the country after supplies ran low. It is classified as an upper-middle-income country and had to pay to participate in the global vaccine distribution scheme COVAX. But it has only received 67,200 doses out of 108,000 allocated by the facility. It has also received donations of 100,000 Sinopharm doses from China and 30,000 AstraZeneca doses from India. Out of a population of 2.5…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Morocco’s to produce vaccine

COVID-19

MOROCCAN pharmaceutical firm Sothema will soon start production of five million doses a month of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine in the North African country, state news agency MAP has reported. The announcement was made at a ceremony chaired by King Mohammed VI during which the Moroccan government, Sinopharm and Sothema, whose formal name is Société Thérapeutique Marocaine, also signed deals to produce the vaccine in Morocco, which has a population of about 36 million. At the same event, the Moroccan government also signed a deal with Sweden's Recipharm to set up a plant in Morocco to produce other key vaccines.…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

Equatorial Guinea buys 500 000 vaccines

COVID-19

EQUATORIAL Guinea has purchased 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from China's Sinopharm, according to its health ministry. "At the Beijing airport, the 500,000 doses... to continue the vaccination campaign are ready to be shipped," the health ministry said on Twitter, adding a video of crates labelled "Sinopharm" being loaded from a semi-truck. The tweet did not specify the price Equatorial Guinea had agreed to pay for the shots. The ministry could not be reached for further comments. China sent 100,000 doses of Sinopharm's vaccine to Equatorial Guinea in February, as part of a series of donations to African countries struggling to…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

Don’t panic, says Zim govt

COVID-19

ZIMBABWE’S government has urged citizens not to panic because it had enough COVID-19 vaccines for those needing a second shot after some centres ran out of doses this week and turned people away. The southern African nation, which aims to vaccinate 10 million people by the end of the year, has to date received just over 1.735 million doses from Sinopharm, Sinovac and Covaxin. Some 684,164 people have received a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine while another 364,240 got their second shot. Agnes Mahomva, the national coordinator on government's response to COVID-19, told state broadcaster ZBC that just over…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

WHO approves Sinopharm

COVID-19

STEPHANIE NEBEHAY THE World Health Organization (WHO) has approved for emergency use a COVID-19 vaccine from China's state-owned drugmaker Sinopharm, bolstering Beijing's push for a bigger role in inoculating the world. The vaccine, one of two main Chinese coronavirus vaccines that have been given to hundreds of millions of people in China and elsewhere, is the first developed by a non-Western country to win WHO backing. It is also the first time the WHO has given emergency use approval to a Chinese vaccine for any infectious disease. Earlier this week, separate WHO experts had expressed concern about the quality of…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

Assessment of vaccines to be finalised

COVID-19

THE World Health Organization expects to release its assessments for emergency use listing of the two main Chinese vaccines for COVID-19 as well as the Moderna shot by the end of next week, according to WHO Assistant Director-General Mariangela Simao. Simao said the WHO's independent panel was assessing the Moderna vaccine and a vaccine from China's Sinopharm on Friday and was due to look at China's other main vaccine, made by Sinovac Biotech, next week. "So, by the beginning of next week or the end of next week we will have the final assessment of these three vaccines out," she…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Egypt approves vaccine for emergency use

COVID-19

EGYPT'S drug authority said on Monday it had granted approval to China's Sinovac coronavirus vaccine for emergency use. Egypt has so far approved and received shipments of the Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccines and has said it is preparing to produce up to 80 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine locally. It has also granted approval to Russia's Sputnik vaccine.

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

Sinopharm waits for trial results

COVID-19

CHINA National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) will need to assess results from overseas Phase III clinical trials to decide whether its two-shot COVID-19 vaccine should be followed by a booster shot, a company executive said on Sunday. Regulators and vaccine developers are looking at whether booster doses are necessary amid concerns that emerging variants of the new coronavirus might weaken protection of vaccines designed against older strains. "The preliminary results so far showed that the booster vaccination can effectively increase the neutralizing antibody titer and antibody persistence, and also effectively improve the vaccine's ability to resist mutations," Zhang Yuntao, vice president…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

China donates 400,000 vaccines to Niger

COVID-19

CHINA has donated 400,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Sinopharm to Niger, the first vaccines the West African nation has received, Niger's presidency said. Vaccinations have been slow to get started in many African countries, which are primarily relying on free vaccines from COVAX, a programme backed by the World Health Organization and other international organisations. China has donated vaccines to several other African countries as it aims to cultivate goodwill through so-called vaccine diplomacy. Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou received the vaccines at a ceremony in the capital Niamey that was also attended by the Chinese ambassador. "Starting…