China’s leading vaccine just got rebranded. On Sunday 28 March, its major pharmaceutical company, Sinopharm, announced a new joint venture with G42, a UAE-based tech company: the vaccine is called Hayat-Vax, hayat meaning “life” in Arabic. The partnership shows immense promise as a new source of vaccines across the developing world.
But there’s a catch: a lack of scientific transparency in its phase III clinical trial data. A successful phase III trial is the golden seal confirming a jab’s efficacy once and for all. It allows scientists to observe possible side effects and make comparisons with placebo cases, while mirroring real-life conditions. From a scientific perspective, it provides critical evidence for developing future vaccines. But Hayat-Vax’s phase III data hasn’t been released.
Sinopharm has already released peer-reviewed phase I and II data in the Lancet.
It proves the BBIBP-CorV vaccine – which has been administered to tens of millions of people – is indeed safe for use, but does not validate its efficacy rate. Last December, China announced that the Sinopharm vaccine is 79.34% effective based on what it dubbed “interim trial data” without releasing phase III results. This contradicted the UAE’s estimate of 86% for the same jab, leading to confusion over the vaccine’s actual efficacy.
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