China says it got WHO support for coronavirus vaccine emergency use

[Mary Wilson]

By Nectar Gan, CNN
Updated 11:00 AM ET, Fri September 25, 2020

(CNN)China gained the "understanding and support" from the World Health Organization before starting a controversial emergency use program for its Covid-19 vaccine candidates, a Chinese health official said Friday.

China has been administering experimental coronavirus vaccines to hundreds of thousands of people since July under an emergency use program approved by the Chinese government, before their safety and efficacy have been fully proven by clinical trials.

... "After the approval, we communicated and informed the relevant representatives from the WHO office in China and gained the understanding and support of the WHO," he told a news conference.

CNN has reached out to the WHO's representative office in Beijing for comment.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/25/asia/china-vaccine-who-intl/index.html

 

[Mary Wilson]

China pushes emergency use of COVID vaccine despite concerns

Huizhong Wu and Sam McNeil
The Associated PressStaff

Published Saturday, September 26, 2020 7:36AM EDT

BEIJING -- After the first shot, he had no reaction. But Kan Chai felt woozy following the second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine approved for emergency use in China.

"When I was driving on the road, I suddenly felt a bit dizzy, as if I was driving drunk," the popular writer and columnist recounted in a webinar earlier this month. "So I specially found a place to stop the car, rest a bit and then I felt better."

His is a rare account from the hundreds of thousands of people who have been given Chinese vaccines, before final regulatory approval for general use. It's an unusual move that raises ethical and safety questions, as companies and governments worldwide race to develop a vaccine that will stop the spread of the coronavirus.

... It's unclear exactly who and how many people have been injected so far, but Chinese vaccine makers have offered some clues. State-owned Sinopharm subsidiary CNBG has given the vaccine to 350,000 people outside its clinical trials, which have about 40,000 people enrolled, a top CNBG executive said recently.

The Chinese government referenced the World Health Organization's emergency-use principles to create its own through a strict process ...

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/china-...tent&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter