China's CNBG to donate two lakh coronavirus vaccines to Wuhan medics

China National Biotec Group (CNBG) said on Thursday it will donate 2,00,000 doses of its candidate coronavirus vaccine to the central city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged late last year.

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken experimental vaccines in China before clinical trials are completed, thanks to an emergency use programme launched in July to protect essential workers and limited groups of people facing high infection risk, raising safety concern among experts.

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The 2,00,000 shots of a vaccine developed by CNBG's Wuhan unit, enough to inoculate 1,00,000 people, will be used to protect medical workers in the city, CNBG said in a social media post.

CNBG has two experimental coronavirus vaccines in the final-stage of clinical trials and both are included in the emergency use programme.

A CNBG executive said on Tuesday it was hoped that the two candidate vaccines get conditional regulatory approval for general public use this year.

CNBG is a subsidiary of state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm).