WHO to evaluate use of Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines against COVID-19

Sputnik V from the Russian laboratory Gamaleya is also under study by WHO advisers.

The main Chinese vaccines against COVID-19, produced by the Sinopharm and Sinovac laboratories, are in the final phase of evaluation and their use will be discussed at the next meeting of advisers to the World Health Organization (WHO), on 26 April, this agency reported today.

"We hope that at least one of the two can be analyzed in that meeting, and if there will not be another on May 3," explained the director of Regulation and Prequalification of the WHO, Rogerio Pinto de Sá Gaspar, at a press conference.

These consultant meetings usually issue recommendations on the use of different vaccines (they have already done this this year with those of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen), and in parallel the WHO must decide whether or not to approve the emergency use of these products.

For now, the WHO authorizes the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) and AstraZeneca anticovid vaccines (in the latter case, only the consignments manufactured in association with the South Korean SK BIO and the Serum Institute of the India).

The inclusion of vaccines in the WHO list is also important because those authorized by the international organization can then be part of the COVAX program of dose distribution to developing countries.

Another vaccine, Sputnik V from the Russian laboratory Gamaleya, is also under study by WHO advisers, although they have requested more data from Russia before being able to issue their recommendation.