Experts dispel doubts about efficacy of Chinese-made vaccines: US media

WASHINGTON - Experts dismissed questions over the efficacy of Chinese-made vaccines, believing that they are helpful in bringing down severe cases and deaths, CNN reported.

In countries such as Mongolia, Seychelles and Chile -- which have each fully inoculated more than 50 percent of their populations, largely with Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines -- cases are still surging, but that does not mean that Chinese vaccines are a failure, the news outlet said on Saturday.

"No vaccine gives 100 percent protection against COVID-19, so breakthrough cases are to be expected," experts were quoted as saying.

"The crucial metric for measuring success is preventing deaths and hospitalizations, not aiming for zero COVID-19," it reported.

China has two vaccines authorized for emergency use by the World Health Organization, Sinopharm and Sinovac, both using inactivated viruses to prompt an immune response in the patient, a tried and tested vaccine method.

"If we want to bring down the severe cases (and) the number of deaths, the Sinopharm, Sinovac can help," CNN quoted Jin Dongyan, a professor in molecular virology at Hong Kong University, as saying.

"We cannot differentiate between COVID-19 vaccines, saying this one is bad or that one is good. All of the available vaccines reduce the risk of severe illness," Enkhsaihan Lkhagvasuren, the Mongolian Ministry of Health's head of public health policy implementation, was quoted as saying.

As Western nations stockpiled supplies for their own populations, China sent vaccines overseas -- in June, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced the country had delivered more than 350 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to more than 80 countries, it reported.