China is among the first in the world in terms of vaccine development, with five vaccines currently in Phase II clinical trials.
Zhong Nanshan, director of the National Clinical Medical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases at the First Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in an interview on May 29.
He said, "Whether it's an RNA vaccine or a virus inactivated vaccine, we now have five that have gone to Phase II clinical trials, and we're not slow at all."
Of course, it still takes quite a long time to develop a vaccine, and a very efficient vaccine has to be selected by comparison, so the time will be longer, he said.
"But I think, with the current process, by the end of the year, there should be some contingencies that should be fully resolved."
Recently, there has been a lot of good news coming out of China on the development of a new coronavirus vaccine.
On May 30, China's State Council SASAC said on its microblog that as of now, the Wuhan Biological Preparations Institute under China National Pharmaceutical Group and the Beijing Institute of Biological Products Co.
Clinical data show that the safety and efficacy of the vaccine are well established and that the incidence and magnitude of adverse reactions are much lower than for all types of vaccines already on the market. The clinical trial is divided into three phases, with the completion of Phase I-III clinical to market, which is expected to take until the end of this year or early next year at the earliest.
To verify the safety and efficacy of the new coronavirus inactivated vaccine and to facilitate the early launch of the new coronavirus inactivated vaccine, China National Pharmaceutical Group also conducted a vaccine pre-test. Pre-testing showed that the subjects' antibodies had fully reached the level of resistance to the novel coronavirus and had a 100% antibody positive rate, indicating that the vaccine was safe and effective.
A week ago, a team of Chinese researchers reported in the British medical journal The Lancet that they conducted a phase 1 clinical trial of a new coronavirus vaccine that showed it was safe and could induce a rapid immune response in the body.
The clinical trial was conducted by a team led by Academician Chen Wei, Institute of Bioengineering, Institute of Military Medical Research, Military Academy of Sciences, and others. The vaccine used in the trial was an adenovirus vector recombinant neocoronavirus vaccine.
For 28 days after vaccination, this vaccine showed good tolerance in different dose groups and did not cause serious adverse effects.
Chen Wei said in a press release issued by The Lancet that phase 1 clinical trials have shown that vaccination with this adenovirus vector recombinant neo-crown virus can induce the production of virus-specific antibodies and T cells within 14 days, "and these results represent an important milestone."
Special Report: Fighting The New Coronavirus
