A NEW COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinopharm has recently been approved for clinical trials.

The new recombinant COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the National Vaccine & Serum Institute, an R&D center of Sinopharm’s bioscience subsidiary the China National Biotec Group (CNBG), got approval from the National Medical Products Administration on Friday, the CNBG said on its official Weibo account Saturday.

The vaccine is based on the structural features of the receptor binding domain (RBD) on the virus’ spike protein (S-protein). It uses genetic engineering to grow harmless copies of the virus S-protein to induce neutralizing antibodies.

The company said that recombinant vaccine technology is mature and suitable for large-scale production. The production does not require facilities with high biosafety levels since the process does not involve live viruses.

The recombinant vaccine is the company’s third COVID-19 vaccine. Last December, an inactivated vaccine developed by the Beijing Biological Products Institute Co. Ltd. under CNBG became the first Chinese COVID-19 vaccine to have conditional marketing authorization.

In February, another inactivated vaccine from the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, a CNBG affiliate, was allowed to enter the market on a conditional basis.

China has administered 164.47 million doses of COVID vaccines as of Saturday, becoming the world's second most-vaccinated country, said Wu Liangyou, deputy director of the National Health Commission (NHC)'s disease control bureau, at a press conference in Beijing yesterday.

China is undertaking vaccination in an orderly manner, prioritizing key groups, high-risk groups and other groups, thereby steadily improving vaccine coverage, according to Wu.

The key groups include people at high risk of virus exposure at work, people at risk of infection from abroad, people who work at key positions that maintain the basic operation of the society, individuals aged over 18 who are in border regions or work in services or labor-intensive industries, and elderly who are in good physical condition and need to be vaccinated for special reasons.

Meanwhile, the NHC also encourages more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 on a voluntary, informed basis instead of a compulsory one, said Mi Feng, a spokesperson for the commission, at the press conference. (CGTN, Xinhua)