China starts clinical trials of H1N1 vaccine

Jul 22, 2009, 11:08 GMT

   Beijing - China's Hualan biomedical company said it began clinical trials of a swine-flu vaccine on Wednesday in the eastern city of Taizhou.

   More than 2,000 volunteers in Taizhou will take part in the human trials of the vaccine against H1N1 influenza, state media said, following reports earlier Wednesday of the world's first human trials of a vaccine in Australia.

   The clinical trials came one month after Hualan first produced the vaccine, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Fan Bei, the company's deputy manager, as saying.

   Hualan Biological Engineering was one of the first Chinese biomedical firms to receive the seed virus of H1N1 and produced the country's first batch of 90,000 shots of vaccine on June 22, the agency said.

   The trials are supervised by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and are designed for 'specifying the dosage and the immunity procedures of the vaccines,' it quoted Fan as saying.

   The volunteers are divided into five age groups and would all be given their first shots of the vaccine this week, followed by a second shot 21 days later, the agency said.

   Experts will test the volunteers' antibodies four times during the two-month trials and follow-ups will continue for a further four months, it said.

   H1N1 vaccines could be marketed as early as September if they pass the clinical trials, earlier reports said.

   Hualan reportedly said it has the capacity to produce 600,000 doses of the vaccine per day.

   China had reported 1,668 confirmed H1N1 infections by Monday, including 1,355 who had already recovered, and no deaths, the health ministry said.

   Australian pharmaceutical company CSL also said on Wednesday that it could have an H1N1 vaccine ready by September if its clinical trials go well.

   Melbourne-based CSL, part of the international CSL Group, said 240 people would receive the updated Tamiflu vaccine in a trial that has begun in Adelaide.