China authorizes use of first coronavirus vaccine

Beijing has given the green light to the COVID-19 vaccine developed jointly by Chinese military scientists, the company CanSino Biologics and the Institute of Biotechnology of the capital. The vaccine, called Ad5-nCoV, can be used by the Chinese Army, which can start administering it to its military from this Monday until one year from now, the period for which the authorization has been approved. For the time being, the vaccine will be limited to military use, the Financial Times has learned.

Initial human clinical trials by CanSino Biologics have shown the drug to be safe and have produced positive data on its effectiveness against the coronavirus, the company announced on Monday. However, despite the fact that the phase 1 and phase 2 trials have shown capacity to mitigate the symptoms of COVID-19, the company says that this is not enough to guarantee its commercial success, so its sale to the general public will have to wait.

This vaccine is one of the most advanced, along with that of Oxford University and the US company Moderna. Currently, there are 150 projects around the world to develop a coronavirus vaccine. In China, seven other candidates have already entered the clinical trial stage.

This news comes at a critical time for the pandemic: there have been more than 10 million infections worldwide and 500,000 deaths. The United States leads the world in cases and deaths, with 2.6 million and more than 128,000, respectively. It is followed by Brazil, with 1.3 million infections and 57,000 deaths, and Russia, with more than 640,000 infections.