A tweet by Pakistani journalist Saadia Afzaal claiming that China has developed a COVID-19 vaccine.
Ms Afzaal’s tweet appears to be based on an interview that she had with General Aamer Ikram, the executive director of the National Health Institute in Pakistan, who stated that Pakistan would receive the vaccine from China ‘pretty soon’., In the interview with Ms. Afzaal, General Akram revealed that the said vaccine is not ready for commercialization, adding that it should be available for use in three months’ time if clinical trials are successful., Speaking in Urdu, Ms Afzaal states that China has taken the lead in developing a vaccine, and would include Pakistan. She asks General Akram how long the trial would take, and when a vaccine would be ready, to which he responds by saying that a vaccine would be available in three months. The video was translated by Uzair Rizvi of AFP India/South Asia-Pacific, Ms Afzaal also shared a letter signed by Li Can, the General Manager at Sinopharm International Corporation, a state-owned Chinese company that researches, manufactures and distributes medicines and other healthcare products. The letter states that Sinopharm would conduct collaborative trials of an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine in Pakistan., The letter further states that Sinopharm’s inactivated vaccine is still at the clinical trial stages, and has not been approved for public use. It is not ready for launch as Ms Afzaar claims., An inactivated vaccine consists of dead disease-causing pathogens or fragments of pathogens that have been grown in a lab culture, and that do not have the capacity to produce the disease in question. In contrast, live vaccines use living pathogens, but are almost always weakened to reduce their disease-causing ability., Inactivated vaccines may not provide the same level of protection as live vaccines, and they often require multiple booster doses to provide long-term immunity., The COVID-19 outbreak, which was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, has spread across the world with over 3.1 million confirmed cases and at least 217,000 fatalities from the disease as of April 28., PesaCheck has looked into the claim that China has developed a COVID-19 vaccine and finds it to be misleading. A letter from Sinopharm International Corporation indicates that the organization is working on an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine and plans to begin clinical trials., This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms., By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds., Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content., This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker James Okong’o and edited by PesaCheck News Editor Enock Nyariki., The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi., PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water/sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org., PesaCheck is a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Twaweza, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ)., The anchor says: “I would want you tell this again, how the people are terrified due to COVID-19 pandemic and people are putting efforts to get rid of this virus and there be vaccine that should be made. Now, China has taken a lead in this and will include Pakistan along with them. Can you inform viewers about this good news, how much time it would take for the trials and when will the vaccine ready in the market.”, Guest- “Within three months, I hope people expect to hear some good news, if all goes well. There are issues regarding safety as well, we have to assess these issues in the trials and God willing if all goes well we’ll be over with all these process.”, Written by, Written by
FALSE: China has not developed a vaccine for COVID-19