COVID-19 vaccines expected to enter clinical trials by mid April or earlier

Some vaccines against the COVID-19 are expected to enter clinical trials by mid-April or even earlier, an official said Friday.

Chinese scientists are racing to carry out scientific and technological breakthroughs in epidemic prevention and control by adopting five technological approaches, Ding Xiangyang, deputy secretary-general of the State Council, said at a press briefing Friday in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The country has adopted treatment methods that combine traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine to cure the COVID-19 and carried out clinical trials and studies on different types of patients including those with mild symptoms after screening more than 5,000 kinds of drugs. TCM treatment has yielded good outcomes, preventing patients with mild symptoms from becoming severely ill, said Ding.

He added that, as of March 3, a total of 14 types of nucleic acid test reagents had been been made available through emergency approval.