As the world continues to grapple with the coronavirus or COVID-19 outbreak, scientists around the world are currently working to find a cure for the disease. Now, according to the latest reports, China has given approval to human testing for a potential coronavirus vaccine cultivated within the cells of insects, the local government in the southwestern city of Chengdu mentioned on Sunday.
China is currently in a global race for developing a cost-effective vaccine to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Making use of the insect cells for growing protein for the vaccine, a first in China, can increase the speed of the large-scale production, the city government of Chengdu mentioned in a notice on social media website WeChat.
China Approves Vaccine Trials for New Candidate
The vaccine that is getting developed by the West China Hospital of Sichuan University in Chengdu, has got approval from the National Medical Products Administration for entering a clinical trial, the notice stated. After it got tested on monkeys, the vaccine was shown for preventing the novel coronavirus infections with no obvious side-effects, the notice claimed. Scientists from China are already working on at least eight other probable vaccine candidates that entered the different stages of the clinical trials.
More than 100 vaccine candidates are currently under different stages of the trial currently. The virus outbreak has created a major stir around the world in recent times infecting more than 22.9 million people worldwide and claimed the lives of nearly 800,000 people globally in more than 170 countries.
Experts have mentioned an efficient vaccine is expected by the first quarter of 2021. However, Russia has registered a vaccine named Sputnik V, which it claims to be the first vaccine for tackling the virus outbreak as experts around the world have raised questions regarding the safety of the vaccine. The Russian president has confirmed that the vaccine is safe to use. The mass vaccination program is going to start in Russia in October.
