China Approves One-Shot Vaccine

Beijing: China has rolled out a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, touted to rival Johnson & Johnson’s one-jab shot. The vaccine was granted conditional approval on Sunday.

Phase-I clinical trials of this vaccine started on March 16, 2020. It is believed to provide protection after 14 days of inoculation and the effect of the vaccine is expected to last at least six months.

The immune response can be increased 10 to 20 times if a second dose is taken 6 months after the first one, a Chinese media report said.

With the single-dose vaccine, China has approved five COVID-19 vaccines. The others are Sinovac, Sinopharm, CanSinoBio and another by Wuhan Institute of Biological Products.

As many as 500 million doses of this new Ad5-nCoV vaccine will be manufactured per year. It can be stored in normal refrigerators.

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