China approves 16 locally-made Covid vaccines for clinical trials

Stepping up in the race for COVID -19 vaccines, Chinese health regulators have approved clinical trials for 16 indigenous vaccine candidates, state-run Xinhua reported. The latest trials are based on recombinant protein, adenovirus vector, and nucleic acid and attenuated influenza-viruses technologies. As per the National Medical Products Administration, six out of the total 16 are already in the third or final phase of trials.

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Read: First Batch Of China's Sinovac Vaccine Lands In HK

China, where the coronavirus infection first emerged in 2019, is currently witnessing a resurgence in cases. As per the latest tally by John Hopkins University, the country has officially reported 100,727 cases and 4,833 fatalities till now. To tackle the same, the communist country has begun its vaccination drive with the approval of two domestically developed vaccines by state-run Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech. As of February 9, China has given 40.52 million Covid-19 jabs to key groups, Xinhua reported, quoting a National Health Commission official.

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Chinese vaccines arrive in Hong kong

This comes as the first batch of one million doses of the Chinese-developed Sinovac Biotech COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Hong Kong on Friday, February 19. Hong Kong announced Thursday it had approved the jab as health authorities in the semi-autonomous Chinese city prepare to begin large scale inoculations.

Hong Kong’s Secretary for Food and Health said “the benefits of authorizing the use of the COVID-19 vaccine by Sinovac for protecting against COVID-19 outweigh the risks,” in a news release Thursday. Vaccinations across the territory of almost 7.5 million people will begin “as soon as possible," authorities said Thursday.

While the Chinese administration has curbed the spread of disease to a large extent, it was mow mulling to curb the western influence in the country. China was trying to draft a "mechanism to discourage minors from studying abroad" as at least 90 percent of the Chinese preferred to move out of the country to study abroad, preferable in the US, a report by state-run  South China Morning Post revealed. In 2019, an estimated 700,000 Chinese left the country, this figure jumping by 6 percent from previously reported, the country's Ministry of Education alleged.