Coronavirus vaccine: Chinese scientists plan joint trials with Russia despite doubts over ‘world-beating’ breakthrough
- China’s leading specialist Zhong Nanshan says researchers from the two countries can ‘learn a lot from each other’
- Last week’s announcement that Russia had approved a vaccine without large-scale trials has prompted widespread scepticism
He also said Russia had made rapid progress in developing a vaccine, adding: “China and Russia can learn a lot from each other. Russia’s technologies and strategies [in fighting Covid-19] are worth studying, while China has its unique methods to control the pandemic, especially the use of traditional Chinese medicine.”
Russia has reported more than 925,000 Covid-19 cases, adding around 5,000 new daily cases in the first half of August, with a low recorded death rate of around 1.7 per cent.
Last week Russia announced that it had become the first country to approve a vaccine and had started producing doses – without carrying out large-scale trials to test its efficacy and safety.
The announcement was greeted with widespread scepticism by scientists, including America’s top disease specialist Anthony Fauci.
“I hope, but I haven’t heard any evidence to make me feel that’s the case, that the Russians have actually, definitively proven that the vaccine is safe and effective,” Fauci said last Wednesday. “I seriously doubt that they’ve done that.”
