ndonesia said it has granted emergency use approval to an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine developed by a Chinese company, becoming the primary country, ahead of even China, to accomplish that.

Indonesia’s food and medicines agency (BPOM) greenlighted using Walvax Biotechnology’s mRNA vaccine, which has been in development for greater than two years and targets the unique strain of the coronavirus.

The approval comes as somewhat of a surprise as Walvax, which has been conducting large late-stage trials of the vaccine in several countries including Indonesia, Mexico and China, has yet to publish efficacy readings that will show how well it may possibly reduce the danger of COVID cases and deaths.

Penny Lukito, head of the agency, told reporters the vaccine, now often called AWcorna, was 83.58% effective against wild-type coronavirus strains considered common and normal, though she added that its efficacy drops to 71.17% for the highly contagious Omicron variant.

She didn’t provide details of the info and didn’t reply to Reuters queries in search of further comment.

Walvax declined to comment. Share response for the Chinese company was muted, with the stock rising just 0.5%.

Indonesia has previously granted emergency use approvals to other Chinese COVID shots before detailed efficacy data became available, though that was earlier on within the pandemic when Western-made products were in brief supply.

China has several mRNA candidates in development however the Walvax vaccine is the one candidate in large late-stage clinical trials.

It was not immediately clear how widely the newly approved shot can be utilized in Indonesia, where greater than 63% of its population is fully vaccinated. Health experts all over the world also recommend using so-called bivalent COVID vaccines, which goal each the unique strain and the Omicron variant.

Indonesia also uses mRNA COVID vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, however the AWcorna shot has an extended shelf life, remaining stable at 2-8 degrees Celsius for a minimum of six months, in response to its researchers.

That would make the vaccine ideal for Indonesia, an archipelago of 1000’s of islands, and other countries which have poor logistics in distant areas.

BPOM said the vaccine’s less stringent storage requirements suited Indonesia, a tropical country, and it could possibly be used as each a primary and a booster shot for adults.

The vaccine can be locally produced by an Indonesian firm, Etana Biotechnologies.

Dicky Budiman, an Indonesian epidemiologist at Australia’s Griffith University, said producing AWcorna at home via technology transfer would help the country develop sufficient expertise because it seeks to organize for brand new variants and possible shortages of vaccines.

“It is vital and strategic,” he said.

Walvax co-developed the vaccine with Suzhou Abogen Biosciences and a Chinese military-backed institution.

Walvax and Suzhou Abogen are also individually working on their very own mRNA candidates that focus on coronavirus variants.

For its part, China has not approved any Western-made COVID shots and its approved vaccine portfolio doesn’t yet include vaccines that specifically goal the Omicron variant.