Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – China claims to be the first country to launch an experimental coronavirus vaccine to the public at the end of July, by giving it to high-risk groups.
On state TV, Zheng Zhongwei, head of China’s coronavirus vaccine development program, said that they began dosing several medical workers and employees of a state-owned company under the “urgent use” protocol on July 22.
This comes a month after the Chinese government began providing military forces with an experimental vaccine.
Zhongwei said authorities were considering expanding the delivery of vaccines this fall to employees of the food market, transportation system and service industry.
“To prevent the spread of the disease in the fall and winter, we are considering an expansion of the current program. The aim is to establish an immune barrier among specific groups in the population,” Zhongwei said on Saturday (19/9/2020). The Washington Post.
In China, the head of the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and top executives have announced that they have received an experimental dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
But the month-long announcement of the vaccine’s public launch raises many questions. There is speculation that China is deliberately launching a vaccine silently, so that if there are severe side effects, they will be easier to deal with.
But Chinese health officials say only a few people, given the experimental vaccine, have reported side effects, but none have reported fever so far. The Chinese side did not say how many people had received the trial vaccine.
So far, the standard approval process for new vaccines has taken years, and required large numbers of patient observations over time to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.
The launch of China’s experimental vaccine itself comes three weeks earlier than Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, which was initially predicted to be the first vaccine to appear in the world.
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