China's success in driving down COVID-19 infections has made it harder to conduct large-scale vaccine trials, and so far only a few countries have agreed to work with it. He said its Phase III trials were likely to start "pretty soon," and the company plans to recruit 40,000 participants for the tests. Two experimental vaccines developed by Sinovac Biotech and a unit of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) are already approved for Phase III trials. Zeng Guang, former chief epidemiologist at Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told the conference that Chinese construction groups overseas in particular are keen to take experimental vaccines. He also said discussion should start whether to launch emergency inoculation of experimental vaccines "right now."

Source: bd News24 July 11, 2020 12:56 UTC