Now, China approves trials for two more coronavirus vaccines
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Chinese authorities had earlier approved one vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech to go in for clinical trial.
After giving the green signal for one vaccine to fight coronavirus, the Chinese government on Tuesday approved clinical trials for two more experimental vaccines.
"The approvals pave the way for early-stage human trials", Wu Yuanbin, spokesman for China's Ministry of Science and Technology said on Tuesday.
Chinese authorities had earlier approved one vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech to go in for clinical trial. On Sunday, it had also approved a vaccine for trial from the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In a study, researchers had concluded that lifting lockdowns without a valid vaccine could prove to be fatal.
The potential for a second wave of COVID-19 infections could increase “exponentially” if measures are relaxed too quickly and governments become complacent, it said.
The study published in The Lancet medical journal used a model based on coronavirus reproduction data from 10 Chinese provinces with the highest number of confirmed cases.
The researchers said their findings were critical for countries in the early stages of a similar lockdown with UK, US and several other European countries in various stages of lockdown and registering high death rates.
While the race is underway worldwide to find the vaccine, Wu said: "vaccination of subjects during the first phase of clinical trials and the recruitment of volunteers for the second phase of clinical trials began on April 9."
"It's the world's first novel coronavirus vaccine to initiate Phase II clinical studies," Wu added.