Worries Grow Over China’s Sinopharm Covid Shot: Bahrain Plans Pfizer Booster For Fully Vaccinated People

[Hamartia Antidote]

well ,johnson & johnson is not better than Astra Zeneca, but its approved. the approval of vaccines around the world seems to have more to not efficacy and safety related materials

I wouldn't use J&J either.

 

[52051]

In China we actually encourage using mixed injection of several vaccines vendor, for better immunity, of cause no mRNA death trap is allowed.

For instance your first shot is taken by SinoVac, and second dose is taken by SinoPharm etc.

 

[CAPRICORN-88]

Do folks understand what it is and why it is called a booster shot.

It is by choice and science?

Stop the silliness and policising.

Vaccines are developed to save lives.

 

[denel]

Hundreds hold rare protest in Bahrain after prisoner's death

Thu., June 10, 2021, 7:06 a.m.


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Hundreds have held a rare protest in Bahrain over the death of a prisoner from the coronavirus despite being vaccinated months earlier by the island kingdom.
The demonstration Wednesday night saw protesters march in the streets of the village of Diah over the death earlier in the day of Husain Barakat.
Videos of the protest, which corresponded to Associated Press reporting on the demonstrations, saw those marching shout that they held King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa responsible for Barakat's death over poor care.
An Interior Ministry statement said Barakat, 48, had been on a respirator and died at a hospital. The ministry said Barakat had received an unnamed two-shot vaccination for the virus.
The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy said Barakat received the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm.
Bahrain, like the nearby United Arab Emirates, relied heavily on Sinopharm in their world-record per-capita vaccination campaigns, but now are offering booster shots of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine. There have been reports of low antibody responses in the UAE, which saw that country announce in May it would offer boosters six months after a Sinopharm two-shot vaccination.
The two shots use different technologies. The Pfizer shots, a so-called “mRNA vaccine,” contain a piece of genetic code that trains the immune system to recognize the spiked protein on the surface of the virus. The Sinopharm vaccine is an “inactivated” shot made by growing the whole virus in a lab and then killing it.
Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, is now struggling through its worst wave of the virus. It's in the midst of a weekslong lockdown and daily case numbers have dropped recently. The island, home to 1.6 million people, has seen over 253,000 reported cases and 1,160 deaths.
Bahrain last week told the AP that 90% of new cases in Bahrain were “people who had chosen to receive no vaccinations.”
Barakat had lost his citizenship and been sentenced to life in prison in a 2018 mass trial, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. Bahrain’s Public Prosecution said at the time the case involved a little-known militant group it identified as the “Zulfiqar Brigades.” Zulfiqar is the name of the forked sword of Imam Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad who is revered by Shiites.
Bahrain’s Sunni-rule government has wielded denaturalization and mass trials to beat back dissent on the Shiite-majority island off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the years since its 2011 Arab Spring protests.
Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press

 

[mike2000 is back]

Worries Grow Over China’s Sinopharm Covid Shot: Bahrain Plans Pfizer Booster For Fully Vaccinated People

Bahrain is fighting a fierce Covid surge despite having one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.

www.forbes.com

Concerns over the effectiveness of Sinopharm’s vaccine continue to grow after Bahrain, battling a devastating coronavirus surge despite being one of the world’s most vaccinated nations, announced its decision to offer booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for those already fully immunized with the Chinese-made vaccine Thursday, the latest in a string of setbacks for the state-owned vaccine recently authorized by WHO.

Vials of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine

GETTY IMAGES

KEY FACTS
Vulnerable individuals—including those who are obese, over 50 or have long-term illnesses—are being urged get a Pfizer booster shot six months after receiving their last Sinopharm inoculation, reported the Wall Street Journal.
While a government spokesperson told Forbes the vaccine offers a similarly high level of protection as other vaccines, the policy change comes after the country already started offering Sinopharm boosters while battling a Covid surge five times as deadly as India’s despite having around 50% of its population fully vaccinated.
Several other highly vaccinated countries that deployed the Sinopharm shot heavily are also experiencing severe outbreaks, with the UAE and the Seychelles both considering or implementing booster programs of their own.
Global concerns surrounding the efficacy of Chinese-made vaccines—notably Sinopharm and Sinovac, which have both been granted emergency authorization by the WHO—have festered due to a lack of public clinical data needed to verify manufacturers’ claims, deficiencies in the data that is made available and the widespread politicization of vaccines.
The peer-reviewed study from Sinopharm’s Phase 3 trial, published at the end of May, found the vaccine to 79% effective at preventing symptomatic disease, but noted the predominantly young, healthy and male trial participants meant it had “insufficient power to test the efficacy among those with chronic diseases, women, (and) older adults,” a concern the WHO echoed for older people.

The study’s authors also noted that no conclusions could be drawn from the trial about the prevention of both severe and asymptomatic disease.
Sinopharm did not respond to Forbes’ request for comment on this story.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
George Gao, the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledged the poor efficacy of China’s vaccines at a conference in April, in what seemed to be an unintentional dissent from the party line. Gao said China was “formally considering” changes to its vaccines to “solve the problem that the efficacy of the existing vaccines is not high.” China responded swiftly, flushing discussion from social media and rebutting the incorrect interpretation of Gao’s statement. On state media, Gao later described it as a “misunderstanding.”

BIG NUMBER
90%. This is the proportion of cases in Bahrain that are attributed to people who have received no vaccine, a government spokesperson told Forbes.

CHIEF CRITIC
State-owned Sinopharm rarely addresses public concerns over efficacy. Chinese officials contend the line of questioning to be an example of anti-China bias and selective reporting ignoring deficiencies in other vaccines. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said a Wall Street Journal article on the Seychelles “exposes their unhealthy mind-set of denigrating China at every turn.”

KEY BACKGROUND
China staunchly defends the quality and efficacy of its vaccines, which it rolled out long before completing late stage clinical trials, as an effective and needed tool to fight the pandemic, which it has used as a key foreign policy tool during the pandemic. Sinovac and Sinopharm’s vaccines are both in excess of the 50% efficacy threshold outlined by the WHO and FDA which, even at a lower limit, can have a major impact on saving lives in a world where the demand for vaccines continues to vastly outstrip demand. The use of another shot to boost immunity and fight new variants is also likely to be required of many Western vaccines—and major manufacturers are working on them—though it does not appear to be needed as soon as six months.

SURPRISING FACT
The UAE, which has been administering Sinopharm booster shots since March, has reportedly undertaken a clandestine effort to revaccinate fully vaccinated people with Pfizer’s shot. The Wall Street Journal cites “dozens of recipients” as telling them they have been vaccinated again, some of whom reported developing no antibodies after their Sinopharm immunization.

Hmm.....I don't know why some articles have flamboyant/sensational titles to attract viewers, but when you finish reading the whole article you find out that the title is usually more sensational ans exaggerated than the real article itself.

 

[mike2000 is back]

I simply wouldn't recommend either of them. Neither have been approved in the US...but something is better than nothing.

Well many countries around the world use our vaccines as their main ones and its the main vaccine that has been approved for use in Europe(albeit there were manufacturing issues so we couldn't provide other E.U countries with as muh as they ordered) . So I understand the US is also protecting it's big pharma companies by keeping out our vaccines or through other means, other countries are doing similar (China/Russia included, even E.U did same).
I'm against politization of vaccines since it involves human lives.
However I'm a realist and pragmatist, so I know that's wishful thinking, so I do know that politics is always involved in almost everything between states/countries . That's the reality whether i like it or not. The world doesn't care about our feelings. So it's normal to see such articles in U.S, E.U, Russian, Chinese media trying to attack each other vaccines and claiming theirs as the better option. To each his own.

 

[nang2]

Well many countries around the world use our vaccines as their main ones and its the main vaccine that has been approved for use in Europe(albeit there were manufacturing issues so we couldn't provide other E.U countries with as muh as they ordered) . So I understand the US is also protecting it's big pharma companies by keeping out our vaccines or through other means, other countries are doing similar (China/Russia included, even E.U did same).
I'm against politization of vaccines since it involves human lives.
However I'm a realist and pragmatist, so I know that's wishful thinking, so I do know that politics is always involved in almost everything between states/countries . That's the reality whether i like it or not. The world doesn't care about yo feelings. So it's normal to see such articles in U.S, E.U, Russian, Chinese media trying to attack each other vaccines and claiming theirs as the better option. To each his own.

Well said!

 

[Hack-Hook]

yesterday I was at COVID-19 Emergency ward and I had 18 new patient , and 5 of them were previously vaccinated . interestingly all 5 have received Astra-Zeneca vaccine that was imported from south Korea some of them even received both doses of the vaccine . but the plus point is non of them seemed to developed severe case and I don't think any of them will need ICU Care

 

[denel]

Worries Grow Over China’s Sinopharm Covid Shot: Bahrain Plans Pfizer Booster For Fully Vaccinated People

Bahrain is fighting a fierce Covid surge despite having one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.

www.forbes.com

Concerns over the effectiveness of Sinopharm’s vaccine continue to grow after Bahrain, battling a devastating coronavirus surge despite being one of the world’s most vaccinated nations, announced its decision to offer booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for those already fully immunized with the Chinese-made vaccine Thursday, the latest in a string of setbacks for the state-owned vaccine recently authorized by WHO.

Vials of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine

GETTY IMAGES

KEY FACTS
Vulnerable individuals—including those who are obese, over 50 or have long-term illnesses—are being urged get a Pfizer booster shot six months after receiving their last Sinopharm inoculation, reported the Wall Street Journal.
While a government spokesperson told Forbes the vaccine offers a similarly high level of protection as other vaccines, the policy change comes after the country already started offering Sinopharm boosters while battling a Covid surge five times as deadly as India’s despite having around 50% of its population fully vaccinated.
Several other highly vaccinated countries that deployed the Sinopharm shot heavily are also experiencing severe outbreaks, with the UAE and the Seychelles both considering or implementing booster programs of their own.
Global concerns surrounding the efficacy of Chinese-made vaccines—notably Sinopharm and Sinovac, which have both been granted emergency authorization by the WHO—have festered due to a lack of public clinical data needed to verify manufacturers’ claims, deficiencies in the data that is made available and the widespread politicization of vaccines.
The peer-reviewed study from Sinopharm’s Phase 3 trial, published at the end of May, found the vaccine to 79% effective at preventing symptomatic disease, but noted the predominantly young, healthy and male trial participants meant it had “insufficient power to test the efficacy among those with chronic diseases, women, (and) older adults,” a concern the WHO echoed for older people.

The study’s authors also noted that no conclusions could be drawn from the trial about the prevention of both severe and asymptomatic disease.
Sinopharm did not respond to Forbes’ request for comment on this story.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
George Gao, the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledged the poor efficacy of China’s vaccines at a conference in April, in what seemed to be an unintentional dissent from the party line. Gao said China was “formally considering” changes to its vaccines to “solve the problem that the efficacy of the existing vaccines is not high.” China responded swiftly, flushing discussion from social media and rebutting the incorrect interpretation of Gao’s statement. On state media, Gao later described it as a “misunderstanding.”

BIG NUMBER
90%. This is the proportion of cases in Bahrain that are attributed to people who have received no vaccine, a government spokesperson told Forbes.

CHIEF CRITIC
State-owned Sinopharm rarely addresses public concerns over efficacy. Chinese officials contend the line of questioning to be an example of anti-China bias and selective reporting ignoring deficiencies in other vaccines. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said a Wall Street Journal article on the Seychelles “exposes their unhealthy mind-set of denigrating China at every turn.”

KEY BACKGROUND
China staunchly defends the quality and efficacy of its vaccines, which it rolled out long before completing late stage clinical trials, as an effective and needed tool to fight the pandemic, which it has used as a key foreign policy tool during the pandemic. Sinovac and Sinopharm’s vaccines are both in excess of the 50% efficacy threshold outlined by the WHO and FDA which, even at a lower limit, can have a major impact on saving lives in a world where the demand for vaccines continues to vastly outstrip demand. The use of another shot to boost immunity and fight new variants is also likely to be required of many Western vaccines—and major manufacturers are working on them—though it does not appear to be needed as soon as six months.

SURPRISING FACT
The UAE, which has been administering Sinopharm booster shots since March, has reportedly undertaken a clandestine effort to revaccinate fully vaccinated people with Pfizer’s shot. The Wall Street Journal cites “dozens of recipients” as telling them they have been vaccinated again, some of whom reported developing no antibodies after their Sinopharm immunization.

well sad news - i lost a good friend who was a teacher in Bandung yesterday to Covid; he developed symptons 4 days back; and could no longer breath on 3rd day. Fourth day he had passed away (yesterday).

He had been innoculated with this useless sinopharm vaccine over 6 weeks. It did not do him any good. What is becoming apparent is it is useless when you have diabetes as a pre-existing condition. This is where Pfizer/moderna and also Astra-zeneca/j&j are showing value.

Bahrain and most of GCC have the highest levels of obesity/Diabetes - this may also be a major factor in their decision to get pfizer.