'Sinovac Data Encouraging, But More Details Needed'

An adviser on the government's anti-pandemic efforts said on Friday that he is encouraged by the latest trial results for the Covid-19 vaccine made by China's Sinovac, but SAR officials need more information before clearing it for use in Hong Kong.

The Sinovac vaccine, which is expected to be the first one to arrive in the SAR, was found to be 78% effective during final-stage trials in Brazil involving some 12,000 health workers.

Speaking on an RTHK programme, infectious disease expert David Hui noted that the efficacy rate shown is better than the 50 percent threshold set for vaccines by the World Health Organisation.

He said the data mainly came from middle-aged people, with no information for the elderly or those with chronic diseases.

But he said this does not mean that the vaccine is ineffective, and he believes Hong Kong is on track for inoculations to start next month.

"This is certainly encouraging data, but they need to provide more information to the Department of Health, including the safety profile, all the side-effects, the ingredients of the vaccine etc., before approval," he said.

Hui said more useful information would have been available if the study had covered people across a wider range of ages, but other final-stage trials, including those for China's Sinopharm vaccine, also only involved people below 60.

He also said he understands that another batch of vaccines developed by Germany's BioNTech, which has carried out trials on people aged 18 to 85, will arrive in Hong Kong late next month.

On local Covid-19 infection trends, the Chinese University professor said the figures are dropping too slowly, and authorities need to speed up contact-tracing and quarantining.

He said it is helpful that around 100 officers from the disciplined services will be deployed to help with tracking down close contacts of patients from next week, and he hopes more can soon be trained up to assist with the task.

He said it is not too late to begin such efforts, saying the pandemic will not end so soon and faster contact-tracing can help Hong Kong prevent infections.