BEIJING: Sinovac Biotech Ltd., a Beijing-based biopharmaceutical company that focuses on research and development of vaccines that protect against infectious diseases, said in a press release on June 14 that its novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) shot is safe and capable of eliciting an immune response in humans, suggesting the shot’s potential in defending against infection of COVID-19.
Its vaccine called CoronaVac hasn’t caused severe side effects and more than 90 percent of people administered with the shot on a 14-day interval have induced neutralizing antibodies two weeks after inoculation, the company said.
The preliminary findings come from phase I and II trials in China. A total of 743 healthy people ages 18 to 59 either received shots on two schedules or a placebo. More data will be uncovered from another group in the trial that received shots on a 28-day interval. Sinovac plans to publish its results in academic journals, according to a spokesman of the company.
Using a killed version of the COVID-19, Sinovac’s vaccine is among five Chinese experimental shots that have reached the crucial final stage of human testing before they can be approved for public use. The company announced a partnership in June this year with Instituto Butantan to conduct its phase III trial in Brazil, where the novel pathogen has caused the second-largest outbreak in a global pandemic that so far infected more than 7.7 million people and killed over 428,000.
– The Daily Mail Beijing Review News exchange item
