Chinese drugmaker says its COVID-19 vaccine is almost 80% effective

Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm said Wednesday that interim clinical trial results have shown that one of two COVID-19 vaccines it's testing is almost 80% effective in blocking the coronavirus.

The results were announced and released by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm.

Company officials did not provide additional data, but said the vaccine has proven safe and that they will seek regulatory approvals for inoculations in China.

The efficiency figure of 79% is well below those of vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which proved 95% efficient in clinical trials.

The Sinopharm vaccine is one of four in China that are being tested in third-stage trials, the World Health Organization says. Others include a separate candidate from Sinopharm, in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, and one from Beijing-based Sinovac.

Unlike the "messenger RNA" vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which have been approved in many nations, the Sinopharm vaccines use an inactivated virus as the platform to produce an antibody response.