Who withheld crucial letter from Sinopharm for approval of vaccine?- By Rathindra Kuruwita
Source:Island
Beijing Bio-Institute of Biological Products Co. Ltd, the maker of Sinopharm vaccine responded to questions posed by the Expert Committee appointed, on March 17, to make recommendations for importing the Covid-19 vaccine to Sri Lanka, by April, but the Committee had been presented with requested answers only on 06 May, a day before the WHO approved the use of the vaccine, Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) President Dr. Lakkumar Fernando said yesterday.
Dr. Fernando is a member of the Expert Committee.
“There are many allegations that we delayed approving Sinopharm. This is false. We indeed approved vaccines, which had not been hitherto approved by the WHO, to be used in Sri Lanka. Even the Covishield vaccine had not been approved by the WHO when we gave the nod. The same is true of Sputnik-V,” he said.
Dr. Fernando said that on 17 March they had handed the NMRA a set of questions to be sent to the makers of Sinopharm. On 19 March, there had been an NMRA board meeting on the vaccine. Dr. Fernando was a board member of the NMRA at that point.
“Four of us objected because the expert committee had not approved the vaccine. The board has 13 members. That means there were nine others apart from us. Six of them had been recently appointed by the government and the others were officials. They could have taken a vote and approved Sinopharm. Instead, they appointed another committee to look into Sinopharm. So, from 19 March to 06 May the initial expert committee had been sidelined with regards to Sinopharm.”
Dr. Fernando said that on 06 May afternoon they had been given a document containing answers sent by the makers of Sinopharm. The WHO was to approve Sinopharm a few hours later.
“We approved Sinopharm within 24 hours. However, when we later looked at the document sent by makers of Sinopharm, we saw that they had responded by April. So, why was this letter withheld from us for weeks, even a month? How can they accuse us of delaying the approval of Sinopharm?”
