TAIPÉI, Taiwan (AP) – China has authorized the emergency use of a new vaccine against COVID-19, the fifth in its arsenal, reported the Institute of Microbiology of the Academy of Sciences.
Gao Fu, head of the Center for Disease Control, spearheaded the development of a protein subunit vaccine that regulators approved last week for emergency use, the institute said in a statement Monday.
It is the fifth coronavirus vaccine approved in China and the fourth licensed for emergency use. The previous three are already authorized for general use. All were developed by Chinese companies.
The latest vaccine was jointly developed by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd. and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The first and second phases of the clinical trials concluded in October and the last phase is currently being carried out in Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Indonesia, according to the statement.
The vaccine was approved for use in Uzbekistan on March 1. The last stage of clinical trials is ongoing. There are no peer-reviewed data on the safety or efficacy of the vaccine that are publicly known.
It requires three doses, spaced a month between them, a company spokesperson said. Like the other vaccines developed by China, it can be stored at normal refrigeration temperatures.
A company spokesperson said no data could be released at this time, but the information was being given to health authorities.
The protein subunit vaccine is similar to many other globally approved vaccines in that it trains the body to recognize the spike protein that the coronavirus coats, although the difference lies in how it tells the body to recognize the protein. They grow a harmless version of the protein in cells and purify it before introducing it into the vaccine and injecting it.
Despite having four vaccines to date, the immunization campaign for the 1,400 million inhabitants has proceeded slowly. The most recent official figure, released Monday in Beijing, is 64.9 million people vaccinated. These are mainly people from the health sector, people who work at borders or customs, and certain industries.
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