After a high-ranking Chinese virologist appeared to doubt the efficacy of China's four approved vaccines, he is now backpedaling and calling it a misunderstanding.
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Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, attracted a lot of attention when he told a conference in Chengdu that Chinese vaccines "do not achieve very high protection rates."
But shortly after he qualified his statement. His aim, Fu said, was to discuss ways of increasing the effectiveness of the vaccines even further, for example by administering different preparations. He had therefore set out a corresponding "scientific vision," he told the Chinese newspaper the Global Times.
Three of the vaccines — two from Sinopharm and one from Sinovac — are inactivated virus vaccines. They are therefore based on a long-established technology used in vaccines for diseases like hepatitis B or influenza.
Although these COVID-19 vaccines do not achieve efficacy levels as high as those seen in the mRNA vaccines from BioNTech/Pfizer or Moderna, which have over 95% efficacy, they are still significantly more effective than some influenza vaccines, some of which only achieve efficacy levels of 30-60%.
Sinopharm's Vero vaccine, for example, still achieved 79% efficacy in a Phase III study conducted in 10 countries. In a separate study, the United Arab Emirates achieved 86% efficacy.
The efficacy of Sinovac's CoronaVac vaccine ranges from 50-78%, according to preliminary studies from Brazil and Indonesia.
Vaccination in Indonesia
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CanSino's fourth Chinese vaccine is a vector vaccine based on an adenovirus type 5, making it comparable in mode of action to AstraZeneca's vaccine. It is expected to achieve an efficacy of 65%.
In principle, the efficacy values improve even further to over 80% when only severe courses of disease are taken into account, namely those that also require hospitalization.
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Combination of vaccines not unusual
The idea of combining vaccines to increase efficacy is not fundamentally new. Scientists are currently discussing similar approaches for AstraZeneca's vector vaccine.
And the Russian vaccine Sputnik V also consists, strictly speaking, of two vaccinations with different vector vaccines based on different adenoviruses. The developers hope that this will lead to greater efficacy.
China is practically unable to test the efficacy of its vaccines in its own country because very few cases of infection occur as a result of the strict lockdown measures. Research is therefore dependent on studies conducted in heavily affected countries such as Brazil.
Researchers and their self-experiments
What do a doctor who swallows his own vaccination against the coronavirus, a psychoanalyst on coke and the fastest man in the world have in common? Answer: They are scientists — and their own guinea pigs, too.
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An oral vaccination against coronavirus
Courage, curiosity or complete hubris? It's probably a mixture of all these things that causes many scientists to test their own inventions on themselves first. According to the Global Times, a Chinese doctor not only developed an oral vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 but also tried it out himself. So far, he hasn't seen any side effects.
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Laughing-gas party with Humphry
Scientific knowledge and private pleasure can go hand in hand. The British chemist Sir Humphry Davy experimented with nitrous oxide between 1795 and 1798. With the help of his self-experiments, he discovered not only the pain-relieving effect of the gas but also its intoxicating qualities.
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Discoverer of UV radiation
The German physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter not only discovered ultraviolet radiation in 1801, but also invented the first battery the following year. Ritter was also interested in galvanism — a term applied to muscle contractions caused by electric shocks. The fact that he died at the age of 33 is said to have been due in part to the galvanic self-experiments with which he maltreated his body.
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Freud on cocaine
The Austrian psychologist and doctor Sigmund Freud is known as the founder of psychoanalysis. His methods are still used, discussed and criticized today. Less well known is that Freud researched the effects of cocaine during his time as a doctor at the Vienna General Hospital. Published letters show that Freud himself consumed coke for a long time and in large quantities.
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Death from yellow fever
"I believe that I am on the trail of the true pathogen," wrote the American physician Jesse Lazear on September 8, 1900, in a letter to his wife. Lazear researched malaria and yellow fever. He confirmed that the latter is transmitted by mosquitoes. To study the disease, he intentionally allowed himself to be stung, fell ill and died 17 days after writing the letter. Lazear was only 34 years old.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Pleul
The fastest man on earth
John Paul Stapp became known as the "fastest man on earth" because of his research on the effects of acceleration forces on the human body — including his own: He had himself accelerated on a so-called rocket sled up to more than 1,000 kph (621 mph) and decelerated completely in 1.4 seconds. It is the highest acceleration that a human being has ever voluntarily withstood.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/United Archives
Secret heart catheter
Werner Forssmann was already considered a troublemaker during his medical training. The German surgeon was determined to prove that a long, flexible catheter could be inserted safely from the crook of the arm to the heart. Although his superiors had expressly forbidden him to carry out the experiment, in 1929 Forssmann was the first person to try it out — on himself. Secretly, of course.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/United Archives
Nobel Prize winner — posthumously
The Canadian physician Ralph Steinman fell ill with pancreatic cancer and underwent an immunotherapy he developed himself. According to his physician, this therapy was unable to prevent Steinman's death, but — contrary to the prognosis — could possibly have prolonged his life by over four years. Steinman died in 2011, a few days before the Nobel Prize was awarded, which he received posthumously.