Corona Vaccine Tracker

Chinese company SinoPharm says vaccine will be ready by December

The head of a major state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company said its coronavirus vaccine will be commercially available by the end of the year. Liu Jingzhen, the chairman of SinoPharm, told a Chinese Communist Party newspaper that the vaccine would cost less than 1,000 yuan ($140) and be given in two shots, 28 days apart.

He said students and workers in major cities would need to get the vaccine, but not those living in sparsely populated rural areas.

Pak gives nod for phase-III vaccine trial

The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has given a nod for phase-III clinical trial of a COVID-19 vaccine developed in collaboration with a Chinese company, a media report said on Tuesday. According to a statement from the National Institute of Health (NIH), it has obtained “formal approval” from the DRAP for phase-III Clinical Trial of Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Vaccine Adenovirus Type 5 vector (Ad5-nCoV) developed by CanSinoBio and Beijing Institute of Biotechnology China (BIB). The NIH said this would be the first-ever phaseIII clinical trial for any vaccine in Pakistan.

Over 100K volunteer for UK vaccine trial

Over 100,000 people have volunteered to take part in the coronavirus vaccine trials in the UK, the government said, while encouraging more citizens to sign up to the National Health Service (NHS) Covid-19 Vaccine Research Registry. In a statement on Monday, the government said that researchers want volunteers from all parts of society, especially those who are more likely to benefit from a vaccine, including the over 65s, frontline health and social care workers, and those from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, reports Xinhua news agency.

“To enable large-scale vaccine studies to take place across the UK, the aim is to get as many people as possible signed up to the Registry by October,” said a spokesperson of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).