TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – China has approved a new COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, one that was developed by its head of the Center for Disease Control, adding a fifth blow to its arsenal.
Gao Fu, China’s CDC chief, led the development of a subunit protein vaccine that was approved last week by emergency regulators, the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said Monday.
It is the fifth coronavirus vaccine approved in China and the fourth to receive emergency approval for use. Three of those who received emergency approval were approved 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 team completed Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials in October and is currently conducting the final phase of studies in Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Indonesia, according to the statement.
The vaccine was approved for use in Uzbekistan on March 1. It is a three-dose shot, which is one month apart, a company spokesman said. Like other vaccines that China has developed so far, it can be kept at normal refrigeration temperatures.
There is no publicly available information in peer-reviewed scientific journals on clinical trial data showing efficacy or safety. A company spokesman said the data could not be shared at this time, but that the company was providing the information to health authorities.
The protein subunit vaccine is similar to many other vaccines that have been approved globally in that it trains the body to recognize the peak protein that covers the surface of the coronavirus, although the difference is in the way it tells the body to recognize the protein. Scientists cultivate a harmless version of the protein in the cells and then purify it, before being assembled into a vaccine and injected.
China has been slow to vaccinate its population of 1.4 billion people, despite having four vaccines approved for general use. The latest figures, according to government officials in a press briefing in Beijing on Monday, are that he administered 64.98 million doses of vaccines.
China has so far targeted what it considers key populations for vaccination, namely health workers, those working at the border or customs, and specific industries selected by the government. Other groups that have been particularly lacking so far compared to many other countries are the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions.
Approved vaccines were previously limited to adults between the ages of 18 and 59, as officials mentioned the lack of data from clinical trials for the elderly, although the government seems to signal that the limits are now being lifted.
“We will promptly carry out mass vaccination of the relevant populations,” Li Bin, vice chairman of the National Health Commission, said Monday.
China’s official Xinhua news agency reported over the weekend that in some neighborhoods in Beijing, local health centers have begun offering vaccines to people 60 and older.
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This story has been corrected to show that the vaccine trains the body to recognize the peak protein that covers the surface of the coronavirus, not the surface of the coronavirus vaccine.