This archive report was first published on 22 August 2020.
On August 22, 2020, China took a significant step in the global fight against COVID-19 by approving human testing for a potential coronavirus vaccine grown in insect cells.
The vaccine, developed by West China Hospital of Sichuan University in Chengdu, has received approval from the National Medical Products Administration to enter a clinical trial.
Using insect cells to grow proteins for the coronavirus vaccine is a first in China and could potentially speed up large-scale production, according to the city government of Chengdu.
When tested on monkeys, the vaccine was shown to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections with no obvious side-effects, the notice added.
Chinese scientists are already leading work on at least eight other potential coronavirus vaccines that have entered different stages of clinical trials.
Foreign players, including Germany's BioNTech and Inovio Pharma in the United States, have also cooperated with local firms to test their experimental vaccines in China.
According to Paul Tambyah, senior consultant at the National University of Singapore and president-elect of the International Society of Infectious Diseases, the increasingly common D614G mutation of the novel coronavirus found in Europe, North America, and parts of Asia may be more infectious but appears less deadly.
