E-Paper
China’s experimental vaccines go on human trial, imported cases keep rising
The two new experimental vaccines approved Tuesday are being developed by a Beijing-based unit of Nasdaq-listed Sinovac Biotech, and by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, affiliated to the state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group.
China has approved two new potential Covid-19 vaccines for human trials, state media reported, adding that one more vaccine developed by military scientists was allowed on Tuesday to proceed to the second stage of clinical trials.
The two new experimental vaccines approved Tuesday are being developed by a Beijing-based unit of Nasdaq-listed Sinovac Biotech, and by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, affiliated to the state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group.
In all, three experimental drugs in China are approved for clinical trials – a part of China’s determined efforts to be the first country to develop and commercialise a vaccine that has already infected more than 1.8 million and killed more than a hundred thousand globally.
It is a battle that China cannot afford to lose is how the state media has described the race.
The first vaccine, developed by a research team led by military doctor Chen Wei with the Institute of Military Medicine under the Academy of Military Sciences, was the first to be approved to enter clinical trial in March, official news agency, Xinhua reported Tuesday.
The first phase of the clinical trial was completed at the end of March, and the second phase started on April 12, the report said.
It is the first Covid-19 vaccine in the world that has entered the second phase of clinical trial, the Xinhua report quoted the World Health Organisation as saying.
The news about three vaccines entering different clinical trial stages comes in the backdrop of a steady rise of imported Covid-19 cases in China.
The Chinese national health commission (NHC) said Tuesday that it received reports of 89 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on the Chinese mainland on Monday, of which 86 were imported.
Three new domestically transmitted cases were reported, all in the southern Guangdong province.
As of Monday, the mainland had reported a total of 1,464 imported cases.
The overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 82,249 by Monday, including 1,170 patients who were still being treated, 77,738 people who had been discharged after recovery, and 3,341 people who died of the disease.
Meanwhile, local reports said that medical resources were “strained and the local capacity to deal with the onslaught of imported Covid-19 cases has reached its limits in the Chinese city of Suifenhe, bordering Russia”.
The NHC had dispatched to the border town to help local health authorities, and donations of medical equipment from across the country had arrived.
According to the tabloid, Global Times, while recording 243 confirmed Covid-19 cases, the Suifenhe land port next to the Russia border has 1,479 people under collective quarantine, 15-20 percent of whom may be diagnosed and tested positive, local officials said on Monday.
