Coronavirus (Covid-19)World

Uruguay study of 862,000: Sinovac prevents 97% deaths

PHOTO: Uruguay reports promising statistics of the Sinovac vaccine. (via Flickr - Jernej Furman)

A new study of 862,000 recipients in Uruguay has found that the Sinovac vaccine is effective in reducing Covid-19 death by up to 97%. The study comes as early results are gathered from Uruguay’s vaccination campaign which has been 80% Sinovac vaccines. They found that for people who had already been fully vaccinated with 2 doses, infections were down 57% and severe cases requiring intensive care were reduced by 95%.

Similar to Thailand, Uruguay relies heavily on the Sinovac vaccine, administering it for the majority of people. The South American country saves Pfizer vaccines only for health workers, the elderly, and those at-risk due to chronic diseases. Their study data is based on 712,000 people given the Sinovac jabs compared to 150,000 receiving the Pfizer vaccine.

Results from their Pfizer vaccinations show that jab was more effective at preventing Covid-19, 75% to Sinovac’s 57%, and slightly better at preventing intensive care cases (99% to 95%). The Sinovac vaccine outdid the Pfizer trials at preventing death though, with Pfizer recipients finding 80% efficacy in preventing fatalities versus Sinovac’s 97%.

Those figures are much lower than Israel’s data, which recently stated that Pfizer jabs prevented 95% of Covid-19 infections, and other studies have also shown better results from Pfizer. The health ministry of Uruguay reminds people that their Sinovac results are preliminary and are also somewhat of an apples-to-oranges comparison since the majority of Pfizer recipients were at-risk or elderly people.

Sinovac is used in more than 20 countries aside from Uruguay and broadly used in its home country of China, but the vaccine lacks as much scientific study and publications as other vaccines, leading to a lot of varying statistics and beliefs about the vaccine. It is a traditional inactivated vaccine, meaning it uses grown and killed cultures from the Coronavirus in its formula, different from Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines that only use spike proteins as “messengers” to train the human body to fight the virus.

Chile released results from their vaccination campaign showing that Sinovac was 67% effective in stopping symptomatic Covid-19 infections and 80% effective in curbing deaths. In Turkey, reports stated Sinovac was 80% effective, though Brazilian trial results yielded only 50% efficacy.

Uruguay is the 3rd most vaccinated per capita country in North and South America, behind only the US and Chile. 45.8% have had at least 1 vaccine, and 28.3% have had both doses already. Like Thailand, it generally escaped outbreaks in the first year of the pandemic, but in the last few weeks has had a huge infection spread, with the highest daily deaths per capita in the world.

SOURCE: Thai PBS World

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Neill Fronde

Neill is a journalist from the United States with 10+ years broadcasting experience and national news and magazine publications. He graduated with a degree in journalism and communications from the University of California and has been living in Thailand since 2014.

24 Comments

  1. Well that is encouraging news, as more people are vaccinated more data becomes available on efficacy and risks of vaccinated people being able to transmit this virus. This was always going to take time, seems Thailand is on the right track

  2. Has the study in Uruguay been paid for by the Chinese Communist Party?
    If the Chinese vaccine is so effective why has China had its borders completely closed for almost two years and you have to do a 3-week quarantine to enter?
    Any positive news about China is Communist propaganda, that’s how the dictatorship works.

  3. The health ministry of “Uruguay reminds people that their Sinovac results are preliminary and are also somewhat of an apples-to-oranges comparison since the majority of Pfizer recipients were at-risk or elderly people.”

    … and, equally if not more importantly, apparently NONE of the Sinovac vaccines were given to “health workers, the elderly, and those at-risk due to chronic diseases.”

    Rather different from how Sinovac is being administered in Thailand.

  4. @luca well I don’t know, have the studies in Europe, Australia, the US and Japan been paid for by their respective governments or in the US’s case by BigPharma that owns the government. What an utterly prewdictable asinine comment, followed up by the usual Western label of dictatorships for any nation they don’t control. Try thinking for yourself for once kid. China-Russia-Iran man not always bad!

  5. @Simaon Small aka Issan John

    “Rather different from how Sinovac is being administered in Thailand.”

    True, hardly anyone is having a vaccine at the moment as most Thais are refusing to register for one.

  6. Either bad reporting or something seriously wrong with this vaccine. All other vaccines are at 100% prevention of death, the effectiveness scores touted are about developing severe symptoms. As others have pointed out, a 97% prevention of death means vaccine increases mortality as covid only has a IFR between 0.2 to 0.6%

  7. The lack of confidence towards Sinovac is so serious that even if tests were conducted on all the human beings on earth showing that is 100% effective, and this data would be certified by FDA, EMA, and whatever other trustworthy certification agency, there would always be those who do not trust like St Thomas.
    Truth is that Sinovac is a vaccine as safe as every one else of its class.
    Further, it is appalling how people would blindly trust the Sinopharm one, which is coming from a company who does not have previous experience on vaccines, but has been approved by WHO, but not trust the Sinovac one, which comes from a company regularly producing other vaccines for hepatitis and flu, but is not WHO approved (yet).

  8. @Buttax – it is not man who is bad but dictatorship is bad, the difference with democracies is that there is always someone who speaks without being killed first, freedom of expression allows it, control of dictatorships does not.
    even in democracies there is a risk of being manipulated by the government, but there are also many more antibodies, for example in America although Trump wanted to become a dictator he did not succeed, at least for now

  9. “True, hardly anyone is having a vaccine at the moment as most Thais are refusing to register for one”

    You’ve missed the point.

    In Uruguay, Sinovac was not given to “health workers and the elderly”. In Thailand it is.

    “hardly anyone is having a vaccine at the moment” in Thailand because, regardless of the numbers registering, there are hardly any vaccines to give.

  10. “… as more people are vaccinated more data becomes available on efficacy and risks of vaccinated people being able to transmit this virus.”

    So what is the efficacy as the vaccine is administered in Thailand?

    … and what are the risks of vaccinated people being able to transmit this virus?

    “seems Thailand is on the right track”

    How do you know? The data from Uruguay doesn’t answer either of those questions.

  11. “Amazing. That’s exactly the same amount that f those who catch covid who haven’t had the jab”

    That’s not what “97%” means – or at least not what it’s supposed to mean.

    The “97%” is in comparison with the unvaccinated, so it means that it stopped 97% of those who would have caught Covid if they “haven’t had the jab” catching it.

    So if (IF) 97% wouldn’t have caught Covid if unvaccinated but 3% would then it protected 97% of that 3%.

    If (IF) the data is calculated correctly.

  12. Why has Sinovac not been approved by the WHO? Twice now in a space of 3 weeks the Thai government claimed that the WHO was going to approve Sinovac that very week and it didn’t happen, something must be wrong right? Why is China not releasing information about this vaccination?, something must be wrong right?

  13. “something must be wrong right?”

    @Joe, the recommendations by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Vaccinations to the WHO were published a month ago as “Evidence Assessment Sinovac / Coronavac Covid-19 Vaccine” giving their “level of confidence” in the “evidence” they were given for six requirements (efficacy, safety, side effects, etc).

    It’s open source, easy to find with a search, and if you go to the last page (32 of 32) there’s a very clear summary.

    They had a “high level of confidence” for one of the six requirements (efficacy), a “moderate level of confidence” for three and a “low level of confidence” for two (safety).

    The grades don’t go any lower than “low”, and the experts don’t get much more expert.

  14. “Truth is that Sinovac is a vaccine as safe as every one else of its class.”

    Well, the “truth” is that the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Vaccinations don’t agree with you and don’t think the evidence is reliable, and they’ve said so (see mine above).

    Now, who do I believe? The WHO’s Expert Advisory Group or you, @chupapi …

  15. Here’s the problem. Here we sit, May 2021, and all the BS that has been written and posted about COVID over the past 17 months can we believe anything? Seriously, the world has turned Public Health into Political agendas and coverups. It’s so sad we as a species have been reduced to this…just saying.

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