China says it has been vaccinating key workers since July
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The Chinese government has been administering a vaccine candidate to selected groups of key workers since July, a senior health official told state media yesterday.
Zheng Zhongei, head of the national health commission’s science and technology centre, told CCTV the government had authorised “emergency use” and it was in line with the law, the South China Morning Post has reported.
There were no details on which particular vaccine candidate was used or how many people received it, but Zheng said it had been administered to workers including health workers and border officials, who are considered high risk as China’s cases are predominantly imported now. The country has gone seven days without reporting a locally transmitted case.
China is producing several of the vaccine candidates currently in phase three testing around the world. Chinese developers are conducting or approved to conduct tests in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Peru, Morocco, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia and Russia, with tens of thousands of people involved, according to one of the companies.
The Chinese government has previously called for employees of state-owned companies who travel frequently to volunteer for vaccine testing.
Last week a plane load of Chinese mine workers were refused entry to Papua New Guinea, over government concerns of an apparent vaccination trial.
The mine owner, Ramu NiCo, run by Chinese state owned Matallurgical Corporation of China, had reportedly issued an official statement to PNG stating that 48 of its staff had been given a Sars-Cov-2 vaccine in early August.
However they were refused entry to the country over a “lack of information of what these trials are and what possible risks of threats” they may pose to the people of PNG, the PNG pandemic controller, David Manning said.
