(Yicai Global) May 27 -- Both coronavirus vaccines developed by a unit of China’s Sinopharm prevented symptomatic infections by more than 70 percent, according to late-stage trial findings published in a US medical journal.

The efficacy of the inactivated shots from China National Biotec Group was 72.8 percent and 78.1 percent, the study published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed.

It marks the first time that the results of phase III clinical trials of an inactivated Covid-19 vaccine have been officially published, and also the first published late-stage trials of a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine.

The study was a collaboration between researchers at the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, Abu Dhabi Health Services, and the health ministries of Egypt, Jordan and other countries.

The paper was based on clinical trials involving 40,382 volunteers, split into three groups, who received at least one dose each of the two-dose vaccine developed by the Beijing Institute or the Wuhan Institute and an aluminum hydroxide-only control, with a primary end point of the incidence of symptomatic Covid-19 at least 14 days after the second injection.

After 77 days, Covid-19 symptoms were seen in 26 participants in the Wuhan Institute group, 21 in the Beijing Institute group and 95 in the control group. That resulted in efficacy of 72.8 percent for the Wuhan Institute shot and 78.1 percent for the Beijing Institute jab. Two severe cases occurred in the control group, but none in the inoculated groups. 

Adverse reactions seven days after each injection occurred in 41.7 percent to 46.5 percent of participants in the three groups; serious adverse events were rare and similar in all groups

Editor: Peter Thomas