The Singaporean Health Minister, Ong Ye Kung, revealed new findings this week on the efficacy of different COVID-19 vaccines that are once again sparking concerns over the use of Chinese-made vaccines that are predominant in developing countries.
In a study of 802 people who died from COVID-19 last year, the Singaporean study reaffirmed previous findings that showed China’s less-advanced inactive agent vaccines are, indeed, less effective than mRNA jabs made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
The other way of looking at the results, though, is that Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, while proven to be less effective than those from the U.S. and Europe, nonetheless provide vastly more protection against COVID than no vaccine at all — even if it requires multiple booster shots to fend off the Omicron variant.
When evaluating this kind of data, it’s important to remember that the vast majority of developing countries don’t have a choice between mRNA and Chinese vaccines. In the case of most African countries, the choice is still Sinopharm/Sinovac or nothing.
SUGGESTED READING:
- Bloomberg: Singapore Breaks Down Covid Deaths by Vaccine, With Moderna Seeing Lowest Rate by Low De Wei
- Washington Post: Moderna vaccines the best — and Sinovac least effective — at stopping covid deaths, Singapore data suggests by Rachel Pannett
