China approves trials of two Covid-19 vaccine

Beijing/Washington. China has approved clinical trials for two more experimental vaccines to combat the novel coronavirus, officials said Tuesday, as the world’s scientists race to beat the pandemic.
The vaccines use inactivated coronavirus pathogens, and the approvals pave the way for early-stage human trials, Wu Yuanbin, an official from China’s Ministry of Science and Technology told a regular press briefing.
China’s state food and drug administration on Monday approved one vaccine developed by a Beijing-based unit of Nasdaq-listed Sinovac Biotech, Wu said. Another vaccine, being developed by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was approved on Sunday, he added.
China now has three different clinical trials for three possible coronavirus vaccines in the works.
Beijing approved the first trial for a vaccine developed by the military-backed Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Hong Kong-listed biotech firm CanSino Bio on March 16.
That day the US drug developer Moderna said it had begun human tests for their vaccine with the US National Institutes of Health.
“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,” Wu said.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund on Monday announced immediate debt relief for 25 poor countries to help them free raise funds to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
“This provides grants to our poorest and most vulnerable members to cover their IMF debt obligations for an initial phase over the next six months and will help them channel more of their scarce financial resources towards vital emergency medical and other relief efforts,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement.
The fund, together with the World Bank, have called for rich nations to stop collecting debt payments from poor countries from May 1 through June 2021. The debt relief will be funded by the IMF’s Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT), which was first set up to combat the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2015 and has been re-purposed to help countries fend off COVID-19.
The fund currently has $500 million, with Japan, Britain, China and the Netherlands among its main contributors. “I urge other donors to help us replenish the trust’s resources and boost further our ability to provide additional debt service relief for a full two years to our poor member countries,” Georgieva said. Last week, the World Bank said it would roll out $160 billion in emergency aid over 15 months to help countries stricken by the virus, including $14 billion in debt repayments from 76 poor countries to other governments. (AFP)