vaccine Photo:VCG

China plans to approve 600 million doses of an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020, Wang Junzhi, an academician and a member of the national vaccine R&D specialist group, said on Friday at a pharmaceutical conference held in Central China's Wuhan.

As of Wednesday, six Chinese-developed vaccines have entered phase three clinical trials, of which four are inactivated vaccines, according to Wang, noting that the type of inactivated vaccine in China is relatively mature and technologically advanced. 

The inactivated vaccine is favored for its ability to elicit a strong human immune response because it has the most similar structure to the natural virus and is safe and controllable in injection. In addition, it can be transported at 2-8 degrees Celsius, a traditional way that makes it easy to transport via cold chain, according to Wang.

"We have extensive experience in using advanced purification techniques to achieve the purity of virus antigens above 95 percent, which is equivalent to that of a recombinant protein vaccine," said Wang.

Inactivated vaccines must be manufactured in P3 laboratories, and if mass production is required, the biosafety assurance and testing techniques in the laboratories must be world-class, Wang suggested. "We have been very successful at it, so this time we are ahead of the world in inactivated vaccines."

China has developed at least 14 diverse Chinese vaccines using five different technology methods that are in clinical trials.

Globally, 14 out of 214 COVID-19 vaccine candidates have entered late-stage clinical trials.