Chinahas approved as many as 16 domestically made Covid-19 vaccines for clinical trials, reports have said. Among these, six have entered phase 3, according to the latest data from the National Medical Products Administration.
A vaccine from China National Biotec Group, which is affiliated with Sinopharm, and the CoronaVac vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech are among those approved, IANS reported. . They received their respective approvals from the administration on December 30, 2020, and February 5 this year.
In addition to inactivated vaccines, China has adopted four technological approaches to Covid-19 vaccines: recombinant protein vaccines, adenovirus vector vaccines, nucleic acid vaccines and vaccines using attenuated influenza viruses as vectors.
As of February 9, China has administered 40.52 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to key groups, said National Health Commission spokesperson Mi Feng at a press conference.
In September last year, China's disease prevention chief Gao Fu had said that China will not require a sweeping novel Coronavirus vaccination program. According to him, a widespread vaccination won't be needed as the pathogen is effectively under control in China, at least for now.
The director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Gao said the large-scale vaccine for COVID-19 would only require if there was a major outbreak—like the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak. He said, "This is an issue of balancing risk and return."
Vaccinate Everyone? No
As per Gao, it would be a waste to vaccinate everyone in China when the SARS-CoV-2 had largely been wiped out in the country. However, China reported 10 news cased of COVID-19 on Saturday, September 12 but all of them were imported.
The first batch of the Coronavirus vaccine should be given to the frontline medical and epidemic prevention workers said the CDC chief and added that later security, cleaning, and catering staff and civil servants working in crowded places will be immunized. But if another Wuhan like outbreak appears, then there should be "large-scale vaccination of residents."
