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The
southwestern province could also begin inoculating the general
public after the Lunar New Year in mid-February, said the
Sichuan Daily, which is backed by the local authorities of
Chinese Communist party.
China has not announced an official timeline for nationwide mass
inoculation or approved any COVID-19 vaccines for general public
use. However, an emergency-use program, that gives experimental
vaccines still in clinical trials to specific people in
high-risk groups, was launched in July.
Sichuan province could complete vaccinating over 2 million
people within 2020 via this emergency-use program, Sichuan Daily
said in an article in Chinese social media Weibo.
People whom the province prioritises for emergency use fall into
12 categories, including medical workers, staff at ports of
entry, police, employees in cold-chain food industries,
teachers, and people travelling abroad for study or work.
The vaccines to be administered in Sichuan province will be
mainly inactivated vaccines, Sichuan Daily said, without
identifying specific products. Inactivated vaccines, made of
dead virus that cannot replicate in human cells, is used to
trigger immune responses.
Three vaccines approved for emergency use, including one
developed by Sinovac Biotech and two from a subsidiary of China
National Pharmaceutical Group(Sinopharm), are all inactivated
vaccines.
(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Tony Munroe; Editing by Bernadette
Baum)
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