In the race against time to create a proper vaccine for the coronavirus, China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd. showed the level of progress with their candidate for the vaccine.
According to the report by Reuters, 90% of the Sinovac employees and their families took the experimental coronavirus vaccine, revealed by the company’s CEO. The process was made possible under the country’s emergency use program.
Undoubtedly, it shows how desperate each country is in bringing a vaccine.
Even with the trials underway, China launched its emergency program in July of this year to fasten the process of creating the much-needed vaccine against the deadly virus.
The emergency program targets specific groups, which include medical staffers, the people who work at food markets, in the transportation and service sectors.
However, the extent of inoculations under this emergency program remains to be a mystery, given how China has shared little to no details of the said program.
But rest assured, China is working hard to stop the resurgence of the coronavirus, especially among its essential workers.
The Sinovac vaccine, which is one of the three vaccines to be used in emergencies in china, has undergone the first and the second phase trials and is now under the third trial in Brazil and Indonesia.
Sinovac’s vaccine program
The company offered the vaccine to 2000 to 3000 employees and their families voluntarily; however, the exact number of people who took the vaccine is still unknown.
When asked about the vaccine during the International Trade Fair in Beijing, Sinovac CEO Yin Weidong said, “As a vaccine developer and manufacturer, a new outbreak could directly impact our vaccine production.” The CEO then exclaimed why the company was one of the selected firms to work on the vaccine.
Results of the program so-far
Yin, who also took the vaccine along with his family members, claimed that amongst the vaccinated, the occurrence rate of adverse reaction has been meager. He also said that those who chose to take the vaccine had been informed about the potential side effects before taking the shot.
Side effects after taking the CoronaVac (Sinovac’s name for the vaccine) include fatigue, fever and pain, and most other mild symptoms, which is a good sign for the company.
Data collected from these samples would be useful in creating a vaccine. However, such data, which is not a product of registered clinical trial protocols, can not be used as primary materials to judge whether the vaccine can be used for commercial purposes or not, Yin added.
Meanwhile, no vaccine has passed the final stage trials yet, and it seems it would be a long time before any country can come up with a completely safe vaccine against the coronavirus.
Image courtesy of Andrii Vodolazhskyi/Shutterstock