Sri Lanka under alleged Chinese pressure has approved the emergency use of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine (also known as BBIBP-CorV).
The approval was granted by National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA), State Minister of Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals Prof. Channa Jayasumana announced.
This development occurred after the chief of NMRA, resigned a few days ago facing pressure for approving Sinopharm. He was not satisfied about third stage trial data, ET has learnt. Sinopharm has not yet been approved by WHO.
Sri Lanka’s top political leadership initially was not keen to procure Sinopharm and had decided to depend only on COVISHIELD.
The Chinese embassy in Colombo has been putting pressure on political leadership since January and making public statements that their vaccine will arrive by mid-Feb and regulatory approval will also be obtained by then.
Earlier Sri Lanka had ordered 13.5 million Oxford AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines in addition to the 500,000 doses gifted by India.
For the first round of vaccinations, the government has placed an order for 10 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India at a cost of USD 52.5 million and a further 3.5 million doses directly from AstraZeneca Institute of UK under the COVAX programme, the spokesman said.
India gifted 500,000 doses of the same vaccine which kicked o Sri Lanka's vaccine rollout in late January.
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa thanked India last month for its generosity after he received 500,000 doses of Covishield vaccine donated by the country under the 'Neighbourhood First' policy.
“Chinese vaccines against COVID-19 are proving ineffective. No one thought that the inferior quality of Chinese vaccines would end people's lives. Indonesian nurse Erny Kusuma Sukma Dewi died soon after she was given a dose of Beijingbased Sinovac Biotech's CoronaVac vaccine,” wrote Jianli Yang (founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China) in the Newsweek.
The Jianli’s article is titled Chinese-Made COVID-19 Vaccines Cause International Concern
Earlier this year, a Peruvian volunteer who took a trial of a Chinese vaccine died from COVID-19-related pneumonia. In December 2020, Peru's government suspended Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine because of a "serious adverse event" that occurred with a volunteer, according to the Newsweek report. Brazil too reported a death due to China's Sinovac's vaccine, leading to the suspension of trials. In Hong Kong people expressed doubts over the usefulness of Chinese vaccines.
Source: The Economic Times
BDST: 1915 HRS, MAR 21, 2021
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