The Asian giant had experienced an explosion of cases in December-January, following the sudden lifting of the strict confinements, quarantines and travel restrictions that had run until then.
The vaccine, designed by pharmaceutical group CSPC, has been approved for “emergency use” by Beijing’s health regulatory authority, the company said in a statement.
It proved to be very effective in a trial in which it was used as a booster dose for people who had already received other types of vaccines, she added without further details.
Messenger RNA vaccines are generally considered to be among the most effective in reducing severe disease and death from the coronavirus.
Conventional vaccines seek to accustom the organism to a virus, by introducing it directly into the body, in attenuated or defused form. Those with messenger RNA, which appeared with the Covid-19 crisis, work differently.
They focus on a small part of the virus – in the case of SARS-CoV-2, the so-called “Spike” protein – and aim to inject the body with strands of genetic instructions, called messenger RNA, instructing the body to make this protein.
Harmless in itself, this “spike” of the coronavirus is then detected by the immune system which will produce antibodies.
China has not yet authorized any foreign vaccines in the country, including those from the companies Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna which use messenger RNA technology.
