China Developed Vaccine Against Covid-19
The world is desperately in need of a Covid-19 vaccine as the novel coronavirus wreaks havoc across the globe. China, where the deadly virus caused an outbreak in the first place, has shown promising results from the animal trials of a Covid-19 vaccine.
According to a report on May 6 in Science magazine, China’s new Covid-19 vaccine has effectively worked on monkeys. This is the world’s first reports on the animal trials of a coronavirus vaccine.
The virus samples were isolated from 11 Covid-19 patients, which includes three from Italy, five from China, and one each from the UK, Switzerland, and Spain.
Researchers administered animals like rats, mice, and non-human primates with the inactivated Covid-19 vaccine, and then the neutralizing antibodies were isolated from those animals. The antibodies effectively encountered different coronavirus strains isolated from patients of various countries.
Later, eight rhesus macaques were given two different doses of the vaccine. After three weeks, when the monkeys were infected with the coronavirus, none of them contracted the disease.
The research paper is authored by a research team led by Qin Chuan, the director of the Institute of Laboratory Animal Sciences, and those from Beijing-based company
Sinovac Biotech.Since the vaccine is found effective in monkeys, the clinical trials of the vaccine PiCoVacc will start later this year.
Covid-19 vaccines developed by countries like China, the US, the UK, and Germany are already undergoing clinical trials.
In addition, Israel and Italy have also developed a vaccine for Covid-19.
Italy’s vaccine is being tested at Rome’s infectious-disease Spallanzani Hospital, and they have successfully generated antibodies in mice that work on human cells.
Israel has made a significant breakthrough in developing an antibody against the coronavirus, according to Israel’s Defence Minister Naftali Bennett.
As per the reports, Israel scientists have wrapped up the development phase of vaccine and moved to mass-production and patent of the potential treatment.
