Coronavirus: China-made ‘ReCov’ vaccine may be better than Pfizer-BioNTech’s, New Zealand doctor says; Sydney faces ‘scariest period’ of pandemic

Young New Zealanders are being paid about US$2,110 each to receive the second-generation vaccine from Jiangsu Rec-Biotechnology in a clinical trial

Elsewhere, Australia’s New South Wales is battling an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant, and Indonesia jailed a cleric for lying

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About 25 young people started being jabbed this week with the ReCov vaccine, developed by China’s Jiangsu Rec-Biotechnology, as a part of a clinical study. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 12:30pm, 24 Jun 2021Updated: 11:41pm, 24 Jun 2021

A group of young New Zealanders have become the first humans to trial a new second-generation Covid-19 vaccine from China’s Jiangsu Rec-Biotechnology.

About 25 young people started being jabbed with the ReCov vaccine this week as a part of a clinical study run in partnership with New Zealand Clinical Research, which has centres in Auckland and Christchurch.

The trial will see 100 people vaccinated with ReCov by September, with a larger trial involving thousands of participants likely to be carried out in New Zealand if the first study is successful.

The ReCov vaccine has the potential to be even better than the one developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, said New Zealand Clinical Research’s medical director. Photo: AFP

The vaccine will be tested on both younger people and those aged 55 and older.

Dr Chris Wynne, medical director at New Zealand Clinical Research, said the trial would go “reasonably slowly” with younger people receiving a low dose of the vaccine at first.

“We dose some people and assess the response and so far there have been no particular issues and we don’t expect any, but we are extremely cautious in how we do this according to the protocol,” he said.

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