China offers mid-trial coronavirus vaccines to aviation industry workers
- Airline staff and border inspectors among those to be offered experimental vaccines, aviation regulator says
- Emergency use programme is intended to boost immunity of exposed groups, with four Chinese vaccines in final stages of trials
With four Chinese Covid-19 vaccines being in the final stage of human trials, China launched the emergency use vaccine programme in July, hoping to boost the immunity of groups such as border inspectors and medical industry workers.
Frontline workers at Chinese airlines, airports, China National Aviation Fuel Group and TravelSky Technology will be provided with a candidate vaccine to use on a voluntary basis, the notice from China’s aviation regulator shows.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China has asked these sectors and firms to compile a list of personal information of employees willing to take the vaccine, the notice adds.
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The vaccination is “in response to a possible second wave of infections erupting in the fall and winter, and to the huge pressure facing our work preventing imported cases as Western countries reopen despite the pandemic”, according to the notice.
Juneyao said it had submitted a list of employees willing to take the vaccine. The other airlines did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
It is not clear yet which candidate vaccine will be given and how many people will be vaccinated.
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At least two experimental vaccines, one from Sinovac Biotech and the other from China National Biotec Group, have been approved for emergency use in China.
No vaccine has yet passed final, large-scale trials to prove it is effective enough to protect people from contracting the virus, which has led to more than 860,000 deaths globally.
