In coronavirus vaccine race, Chinese and Oxford trials produce immune responses, offering hope in pandemic

The Chinese scientists have completed phase two of their trial, published in The Lancetmedical journal on Monday, which found that one injection of either a low or medium dose of the vaccine “induced significant neutralising antibody responses to live Sars-CoV-2”, the name for the novel coronavirus. An earlier phase-one trial of the vaccine had produced immune responses, but the latest trial was widened to include individuals aged 55 or older, given their higher risk of death from the Covid-19 virus.

“Single-dose immunisation with the vaccine induced rapid onset of immune responses within 14 days, and significant humoral and cellular immune responses within 28 days in the majority of the recipients,” the team of Chinese scientists, led by Zhu Fengcai from the Jiangsu Provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Guan Xuhua from the Hubei Provincial CDC, wrote.

Their results showed the vaccine, developed by the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology and Chinese vaccine maker CanSino Biologics, had “a good safety profile”.

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