Morocco orders millions of Sinovac vaccines

Back in November Moroccan officials announced an ambitious plan to vaccinate 80% of Moroccans starting December 2020. The media and health officials reported that the ministry of health has ordered 10 million doses of a Chinese vaccine. New studies have shown that the vaccine in question is ineffective.

A new study of the vaccine in Brazil has concluded that the Chinese vaccine Sinovac is only 50.4% effective as the BBC reported. However, the Sinovac trials have yielded different results across different countries.

In other trials, last month Turkish researchers said the Sinovac vaccine was 91.25% effective. Similar studies in Indonesia was 65.3% effective. Indonesia has rolled out a mass vaccination program last week. However, both studies are not final results but late-stage trials.

Sinovac is a Beijing-based biopharmaceutical company. It is behind CoronaVac, an inactivated vaccine. It works by using killed viral particles to expose the body’s immune system to the virus without risking a serious disease response.

Morocco is not the only country to have ordered the vaccine. The list of other countries includes Indonesia, Turkey and Singapore.

The Moroccan minister of health confirmed in November 2020 that the vaccination rollout program will begin in early December 2020. In addition, the minister is also quoted saying “we are doing our best to get it started in mid-December.”