UAE approves use of China's Sinopharm broad-spectrum COVID vaccine

A broad-spectrum COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm, which has the potential to protect against variants including Omicron, has been approved for emergency use by authorities in the United Arab Emirates, the company said on Thursday.

The recombinant protein vaccine, named NVSI-06-09, has been shown in a study to induce potent neutralizing antibodies against various sublineages of Omicron, including BA.1.1, BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5, as well as Delta and Beta strains when delivered as a booster shot to participants already vaccinated with two or three doses of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines.

In particular, the level of antibodies harbored by participants 14 days after the booster immunization has increased by 22.4 to 42.3 times more than previous levels, the company said in a statement released on its official website.

A preprint version of the study has been published in Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, an academic journal, in September.

Sinopharm added that the adjuvant used in vaccination — a feature of vaccines based on the recombinant protein technology — has shown to be safe among all people aged three and above, including children and the elderly.

"The shot can be administered as a universal booster shot for different age groups and can potentially offer protection against different variants including Omicron," it said.

The annual production capacity of the vaccine is estimated to reach 1.2 billion doses, it said.