Almost a million people have been given an experimental Chinese coronavirus vaccine, pharmaceutical giant claims

By Ben Westcott and Sophie Jeong, CNN

Hong Kong (CNN) Almost a million people have been given an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Sinopharm as part of an emergency-use program authorized by Beijing, the Chinese pharmaceutical giant's chairman said.

No serious adverse effects have been reported from vaccine recipients so far, Sinopharm said Wednesday in an article on social media platform WeChat, citing Chairman Liu Jingzhen.

"In emergency use, we now have used it on nearly a million people. We have not received any reports of serious adverse reaction, and only a few have some mild symptoms," Liu said. Liu said the vaccine had been given to Chinese construction workers, diplomats, and students who have gone to more than 150 countries around the world during the pandemic -- and none of them has reported an infection.

He said on November 6 that there were 56,000 people who had received emergency vaccinations and then gone overseas.

"For example, a transnational company has 99 employees in one of its overseas offices, of whom 81 were vaccinated. And later, an outbreak broke out in the office, 10 of the 18 people who were not vaccinated were infected and none of those vaccinated were infected," he said.

He said that separately, Sinopharm had carried out Phase 3 clinical trials involving almost 60,000 people in 10 countries -- including the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Peru, and Argentina. CNN has not seen the results of these trials yet.​

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