China To Be Ready With Covid- 19 Vaccine For Public Use By November This Year

China will be ready with its Covid- 19 vaccine by November or December this year. At present 4 vaccine candidates have reached phase 3 trials.

(Representative Image/ Getty)

New Delhi: Earlier this month, Russia released its vaccine for Covid 19 for public use. Now it seems that China is also gearing up for the launch of its Covid 19 vaccine. According to a report by Reuters, an official from China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has informed that the vaccine with be ready by November this year.

The report says that on Monday, the CDC chief biosafety expert Guizhen Wu said during an interview with state TV that phase 3 clinical trials of the vaccine are proceeding smoothly and the vaccines could be ready for the general public in November or December.  She also said that she had injected the vaccine on herself in April and has experienced no adverse effects.

At present China has four Covid-19 vaccines in the final stage of clinical trials. While three of them are being developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) and U.S.-listed Sinovac Biotech, the fourth one is by  CanSino Biologics. The vaccine by CanSino was approved for use by the Chinese military in June. In May China had become the first country to conduct human trials of the vaccine. Wu did not mention which of the four vaccine will be ready for public use in November.

India is also actively developing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus and on Sunday the Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that although no launch date has been fixed yet, the Coronavirus vaccine is likely to be ready by the first quarter of 2021. The minister even offered to take the first shot of the vaccine in order to build trust of the people of India on the drug. He also said that the Government of India is taking full precautions in conducting the human trials of the vaccine and issues like security, cost, equity, cold-chain requirements, production timelines etc are also been discussed intensely.