Three-dose Chinese vaccine for COVID-19 gets approval for human trials in Pakistan

• Starting next week, Pakistan will begin phase III of another China-made vaccine, named, ZF2001
• DRAP has given the go-ahead to conduct trials of ZF2001
• UHS spokesperson says vaccine will be administered to 10,000 participants in the third phase trial

Human trials for another China-made coronavirus vaccine have been approved in Pakistan. The trials will start enrolling adult volunteers from next week.

Pakistan has already granted emergency use authorisation to four anti-coronavirus vaccines till now - the UK’s AstraZeneca, China’s Sinopharm, Russia Sputnik-V and China’s CanSino jab.

The one-dose Ad5-nCoV vaccine, produced by CanSino Biologics, was also tested in Pakistan on over 18,000 volunteers across the country from September to January.

Now, starting next week, Pakistan will begin phase III, therefore human trials, of another China-made vaccine, named, ZF2001, University of Health Sciences, Lahore Vice-chancellor Javed Akram told Geo.tv.

Read more: UHS starting trial of another coronavirus vaccine from China next week

The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan has given the go-ahead to conduct trials of ZF2001, a drug co-developed by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biologic Pharmacy Co. Ltd and the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Dr Shehnoor Azhar, the spokesperson of UHS, also confirmed the news to Geo.tv and further added that while most vaccines require single or two-doses, the ZF2001 vaccine is instead a three-dose jab.

In the third phase trial, he added, the vaccine will be administered to 10,000 participants at the UHS, the National Defense Hospital in Lahore and the Aga Khan Hospital in Karachi.