China gets approval to run human trial of COVID-19 vaccine in UAE

BEIJING: China National Biotec Group (CNBG) has received approval to run a large-scale “Phase 3” clinical trial of its potential COVID-19 vaccine candidate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

According to a statement issued by the company on Tuesday, “China is seeking to trial potential vaccines overseas because of a lack of new patients at home”.

The statement further said several experimental vaccines are being trialed across the globe. “None of them has yet successfully completed a late-stage “Phase 3” test to determine efficacy in shielding healthy people from the COVID-19, which has killed over 470,000 people around the globe.

Such trials involve thousands of participants and normally take place in countries where the COVID-19 is widespread so that the vaccine can be observed in a real-life environment.

Though China, the origin of the global plague, reported fewer than 10 new local COVID-19 cases a day on average last month and its researchers are now looking abroad, read the statement.

The Chinese company announced the move in a Weibo social media post, without naming the vaccine to be tested in the UAE.

Units of CNBG, an affiliate of the state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm), have developed two potential vaccines, which have together been given to over 2,000 people in previous tests in China.