Director-general of China's Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Dr Gao Fu said that China expects to have a successful vaccine candidate for the deadly disease by September 2020.
China Coronavirus vaccine
China's CDC chief Dr Gao said that the Coronavirus vaccine would be ready to use for emergency situations, such as a new wave of COVID-19 in the country. He told Chinese broadcaster CGTN on Thursday, April 23 that development of a vaccine is always a time-consuming procedure as "The vaccine will be used on healthy people, you wanna make sure the vaccine you're developing is safe and efficient."
The Chinese virologist also stated that the country is currently leading the world's efforts to develop vaccines for the SARS-CoV-2. He mentioned that "Maybe by September, we might have a vaccine to be used for emergencies. For example, if we have some emergency outbreak again."
The use of COVID-19 vaccine
As per Dr Gao this "emergency vaccine" which would be in its second or third phase of the clinical trials, would be used on healthcare staff before applying on the general population. He stated that "In my opinion, maybe we will get a vaccine for healthy people early next year."
It should be noted that the country, which put Wuhan in lockdown for 76-day lockdown after the number of Coronavirus cases started to increase in the initial epicentre of COVID-19, currently has three vaccine candidates which have been permitted to conduct clinical trials and two of those have moved onto their second stage of the testing procedure.
Soon the world will have two vaccines ready?
UK researchers at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford have started the human trials by administrating the trial injections, developed in under three months, to more than 800 participants of the trial program on Thursday.
An Oxford University professor Sarah Gilbert who is currently leading Britain's most advanced search for a Coronavirus vaccine said she was "80 per cent confident" her team's development would work by autumn this year. Recently, country's Health Secretary Matt Hancock has also insisted that the UK will be first in the queue for any successfully developed vaccine from the £42 million programmes, while the Downing Street has refused to make any promises over who will be benefited by the vaccine first.
If we consider both claims made by Chinese and Briton experts, it can be believed that by the end of 2020, the world will have two approved vaccines against novel Coronavirus that would help the doctors to treat millions of COVID-19 patients that will automatically decrease the fatality cases globally.