Over 5,000 volunteers in Wuhan sign up for clinical trials over Covid19 vaccine

News Network
March 25, 2020

Beijing, Mar 25: Around 5,000 people have signed up for the phase I clinical trial of recombinant novel coronavirus vaccine in Chinese city Wuhan where the virus first emerged late last year.

The recruitment for participants ended this week with nearly 5,000 volunteers signing up for the trial, state-run Beijing News reported on Wednesday.

A single-centre, open and dose-escalation phase I clinical trial for recombinant novel coronavirus vaccine (adenoviral vector) will be tested in healthy adults aged between 18 and 60 years, according to the ChiCTR (China Clinical Trial Register).

The trial, led by experts from the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, gained its approval on March 16 and the research is expected to last half a year.

Requiring at least 108 participants, the trial will be conducted in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, the region worst-affected by the virus in the country, state-run China Daily reported.

Participants will experience 14-day quarantine restrictions after being vaccinated and their health condition will be recorded every day.

Chinese scientists are hastening the development of COVID-19 vaccines through five approaches --- inactivated vaccines, genetic engineering subunit vaccines, adenovirus vector vaccines, nucleic acid vaccines and vaccines using attenuated influenza virus as vectors.

So far, most teams are expected to complete preclinical research in April and some are moving forward faster, Wang Junzhi, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering said.

Wang noted that research and development of COVID-19 vaccines in China is not slower than foreign counterparts and has been carried out in a scientific, standardised and orderly way.

China has stepped up the process to finalise vaccines to counter COVID-19 after Kaiser Permanente research facility in Seattle and Washington stole the march and began human trials.

China lifted tough restrictions on the Hubei province on Wednesday after a months-long lockdown as the country reported no new domestic cases.

But there were another 47 imported infections from overseas, the National Health Commission said. In total, 474 imported infections have been diagnosed in China -- mostly Chinese nationals returning home.

Comments

Y UDAYA CHANDAR
 - 
Monday, 13 Apr 2020

Dear Sir,

 

I am 77 but a very healthy person with remarkable immunity. I contracted Malaria fever in 1994 because of mosquito biting and I have not been sick anytime there after, not even for ordinary fever in the last 26 years.

 

I am sure you would like to conduct the trials on persons of varying criteria. I am sure you don't want to carry out the trials on perfectly healthy young individuals only. 

 

I am certain that  you want to try the vaccine on a 'common man' from 'general public.' I am ready for the trial and you can take me. I will be delighted. 

 

If you are not handling this matter kindly forward this mail to the correct agency.

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Best regards.

 

If you are not moving forward, you are really moving backward.

Y Udaya Chandar

 

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News Network
July 1,2020

Washington, Jul 1: The United States has approved four coronavirus vaccine candidates for clinical trials, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) head Stephen Hahn told reporters.

"Four vaccines have been approved for moving into clinical trials... and another six are in the pipeline for us to review," Hahn said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

The US Administration launched in May Operation Warp Speed, a joint project of Health and Defense Departments, which aims to deliver 300 million doses of a vaccine for COVID-19 by January 2021.

The country's top pandemics expert Anthony Fauci warned on Tuesday, however, that there is no certainty the United States will be able to develop a vaccine against COVID-19 that works and will be safe.

Data on vaccine effectiveness, he added, may be available in the winter or early next year.

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News Network
May 29,2020

Washington, May 29: US President Donald Trump while speaking with reporters at the White House on Thursday said that he is more liked in India than the media in his own country --the United States.

"I know. And they like me in India. I think they like me in India certainly more than the media likes me in this country, " Trump told reporters at his Oval office.

"And I like Modi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi). I like your prime minister a lot. He's a great gentleman. A great gentleman," he added further while briefing the reporters.

But when asked over ties between India and China, the US President said, "They have a big conflict going with India and China. Two countries with 1.4 billion people. Two countries with very powerful militaries. And India is not happy, and probably China is not happy."

Reiterating his offer to mediate between India and China on the border issue, Trump said that he spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is not in "good mood" about the ongoing situation with Beijing.

However, informed sources from the Ministry of External Affairs told ANI on Friday that there has been no recent contact between Prime Minister Modi and the US President. The last conversation between them took place on April 4, 2020, on the subject of hydroxychloroquine.

Asked about his Wednesday's tweet regarding his offer to mediate between India and China, Trump said, "I would do that. If they (China and India) thought it would help." However, Trump did not clarify when did he speak to Modi.

Trump on Wednesday tweeted that he is "ready, willing and able to mediate" between India and China."We have informed both India and China that the United States is ready, willing and able to mediate or arbitrate their now raging border dispute," the US President said.

In response to Trump's mediation offer, India said on Thursday that it is engaged with the Chinese side to resolve the border issue peacefully.

India's Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said that the two sides have established mechanisms both at military and diplomatic levels to resolve situations that may arise in border areas peacefully through dialogue and "continue to remain engaged through these channels."

Indian and Chinese field commanders have been holding talks on de-escalating the tensions.

China has also struck a conciliatory tone on the border issue with India, saying the two countries pose no threat to each other and should resolve their differences through communication, while not allowing them to overshadow bilateral relations.

"We should never let differences overshadow our relations. We should resolve differences through communication. China and India should be good neighbours of harmonious coexistence and good partners to move forward hand in hand," said Chinese Ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, on Wednesday.

The tensions escalated between India and China following a number of confrontations between soldiers of both armies.

Troops of India and China were engaged in two face-offs in Eastern Ladakh and North Sikkim along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC), where troops from both sides suffered injuries early this month.

Studies over the anti-malarial drug, which is believed to cure the highly contagious coronavirus, have shown side-effects, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organisation. But Trump continues to defend his decision to take hydroxychloroquine saying he believes that it gives an additional level of safety.

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Agencies
June 24,2020

Seoul, Jun 24: North Korea on Wednesday said leader Kim Jong Un suspended a planned military retaliation against South Korea, possibly slowing the pressure campaign it has waged against its rival amid stalled nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration.

Last week, the North had declared relations with the South as fully ruptured, destroyed an inter-Korean liaison office in its territory and threatened unspecified military action to censure Seoul for a lack of progress in bilateral cooperation and for activists floating anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

Analysts say North Korea, after weeks deliberately raising tensions, may be pulling away just enough to make room for South Korean concessions.

Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim presided by video conference over a meeting Tuesday of the ruling Workers' Party's Central Military Commission, which decided to postpone plans for military action against the South brought up by the North's military leaders.

KCNA didn't specify why the decision was made. It said other discussions included bolstering the country's "war deterrent".

Yoh Sang-key, spokesman of South Korea's Unification Ministry, said Seoul was "closely reviewing" the North's report but didn't further elaborate.

Yoh also said it was the first report in state media of Kim holding a video conferencing meeting, but he didn't provide a specific answer when asked whether that would have something to do with the coronavirus.

The North says there hasn't been a single COVID-19 case on its territory, but the claim is questioned by outside experts.

Kim Dong-yub, an analyst from Seoul's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said it's likely that the North is waiting for further action from the South to salvage ties from what it sees as a position of strength, rather than softening its stance on its rival.

"What's clear is that the North said (the military action) was postponed, not cancelled," said Kim, a former South Korean military official who participated in inter-Korean military negotiations.

Other experts say the North would be seeking something major from the South, possibly a commitment to resume operations at a shuttered joint factory park in Kaesong, which was where the liaison office was located, or restart South Korean tours to the North's Diamond Mountain resort.

Those steps are prohibited by the international sanctions against the North over its nuclear weapons programme.

The public face of the North's recent bashing of the South has been Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, who has been confirmed as his top official on inter-Korean affairs.

Issuing harsh statements through state media, she had said the North's demolishing of the liaison office would be just the first in a series of retaliatory action against the enemy South and that she would leave it to the North's military to come up with the next steps.

The General Staff of the North's military has said it would send troops to the mothballed inter-Korean cooperation sites in Kaesong and Diamond Mountain and restart military drills in frontline areas.

Such steps would nullify a set of deals the Koreas reached during a flurry of diplomacy in 2018 that prohibited them from taking hostile action against each other.

Also condemning the South over North Korean refugees floating anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, the North said Monday it printed 12 million of its own propaganda leaflets to be dropped over the South in what would be its largest ever anti-Seoul leafleting campaign.

It wasn't immediately clear whether Kim's decision to hold back military action would affect the country's plans for leafleting. The North's military had said it would open border areas on land and sea and provide protection for civilians involved in the leafleting campaigns.

The North has a history of dialling up pressure against the South when it fails to get what it wants from the United States. The North's recent steps came after months of frustration over Seoul's unwillingness to defy US-led sanctions and restart the inter-Korean economic projects that would breathe life into its broken economy.

Nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington largely stalled after Kim's second summit with President Donald Trump last year in Vietnam, where the Americans rejected North Korea's demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.

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