China approves emergency use of COVID-19 vaccine, developed by local firms

China has authorised emergency usage of COVID-19 vaccines developed by some select domestic companies, a Chinese health official has said.

An emergency use authorisation, which is based on Chinese vaccine management law, allows unapproved vaccine candidates to be used among people who are at high risk of getting infected on a limited period.

"We've drawn up a series of plan packages, including medical consent forms, side-effects monitoring plans, rescuing plans, compensation plans, to make sure that the emergency use is well regulated and monitored," Zheng Zhongwei, head of China's coronavirus vaccine development task force, told state-run CCTV on Saturday.

Coronavirus without a doubt has wrecked havoc everywhere. All countries are facing an uphill task due to the health crisis. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced the development of the first ever COVID-19 vaccine.

Russia has dubbed the vaccine "Sputnik V" which has also been approved by the Russian Ministry of Health.

The SputnikV website has also been launched from Russia. After Russia, another country has now approved 2 vaccines in case of emergency according to the respective officials.

Health officials in China say two vaccines manufactured jointly by select companies in China have been approved for emergency use.

Similar authorizations have been legalized in many countries. For example, U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows unapproved medical products to be used in an emergency to diagnose, treat or prevent life-threatening disease or conditions.

The national agency has used several emergency use authorizations since the coronavirus outbreak as a way to get many diagnostic tests more quickly to the market than the normal procedures.

A new coronavirus vaccine cultivated within insect cells by West China Hospital of Sichuan University in Chengdu has been approved for human trial, according to local government on Saturday.

Using insect cells to grow proteins for the coronavirus vaccine – a first in China – could speed up large-scale production, the Chengdu city government said in a notice on its official WeChat account. Animal tests have shown promising results in preventing coronavirus infection, the notice said, and no obvious side effects have found.

According to China's National Medical Products Administration, at least eight potential coronavirus vaccines have entered different stages of clinical trials.

In an interview with CCTV, Yang Xiaoming, chief scientist of China's vaccine development and CEO of China National Biotec Group (CNBG) said they've signed agreements with many countries on inactivated vaccine clinical trials over the past few months.

"Over 20,000 people has been vaccinated," Yang added, "Vaccine safety is well guaranteed; the effectiveness is being closely monitored." The company announced on late Friday Argentina joined Peru, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in approving Phase 3 clinical trials for their inactivated coronavirus vaccine.