Will Canada use Russian and Chinese vaccines against COVID-19?
The skepticism has been replaced by confirmed results, but it doesn't seem to be enough.
A new study by the Lancet found that Russia's Satellite V vaccine, which was initially met with skepticism in the West, has an efficacy rate of nearly 92%, almost on par with Pfizer and Moderna, which are 95% effective.
Last week, Russia signed a deal to produce Satellite V in Italy. It was a first for the European Union, so EU regulators are studying whether to allow distribution of the vaccine.
Meanwhile, vaccines from Sinopharm and Sinovac, two Chinese companies, have received widespread approval in the Middle East and Latin America.
Despite the growing popularity of these drugs, there is no indication that any of these vaccines are on the radar of Canadian health authorities.
Epidemiologist Raivat Deonandan says Russia's Satellite V was initially met with skepticism because of a combination of politics and concerns about the quality of raw data provided by Russian scientists.
"The baseline on which the Russians licensed their vaccine for widespread use was based on 76 people, a very small number, and there wasn't a lot of transparency in their licensing regulatory process," Deonandan said. — That got a lot of ethicists thinking about what other steps to skip if, in fact, the regulatory process was a bit muddled."
According to him, we are now at the point where there is enough evidence and the vaccine does seem to be effective enough.
Satellite V works similarly to the AstraZeneca vaccine, using a so-called viral vector approach that uses adenovirus to deliver a spiking protein coronavirus.
