Beijing: China plans to use an mRNA vaccine, co-developed by China’s Fosun Pharma and Germany’s BioNTech, as a booster shot for those already vaccinated in the country using other Chinese vaccines. As of July 1, China has administered over 1.2 billion vaccine doses. Despite that, it has no plans to relax its border restrictions until at least 2022, The Diplomat reported. Most of the citizens have received vaccines made by Sinovac and Sinopharm Group. Both these vaccines use inactivated particles of the virus, rather than the newer mRNA technology.
According to a Nikkei Asia report, the efficacy of the Chinese shots ranges from 50 per cent to almost 80 per cent in trials. The level of effectiveness is significantly lower than the mRNA vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.