Advertisement
Coronavirus China
ChinaScience

China’s first mRNA Covid-19 vaccine approved for use in Indonesia

  • Walvax’s AWcorna gets the go-ahead for emergency use by Indonesian authorities, and is ‘intensively’ advancing with Chinese regulator
  • Company chairman Li Yunchun says China has achieved full localisation and independent supply chain for the vaccine on the mainland

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
16
Walvax’s AWcorna is the first mRNA vaccine against Covid-19 to be approved for emergency use in adults. Photo: AP
Zhuang Pinghuiin Beijing
Indonesia has become the first country to approve a Chinese home-grown mRNA Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use.
The Indonesian Food and Drugs Agency on Thursday approved AWcorna for primary and booster use by people aged 18 years old and above, according to a report in China’s Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily.

The approval for the vaccine – co-developed by Yuxi Walvax with Suzhou Abogen Biosciences and the Academy of Military Sciences – is the first authorisation for a Chinese vaccine which uses the hi-tech platform adopted by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

China has yet to approve any mRNA vaccine although clinical trials have been approved for several. BioNTech, which partnered with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical, has had its jab stuck in administrative review for a year.

Three years into the pandemic, more than 90 per cent of China’s 1.4 billion population have received two doses of Covid-19 shots and fewer than 60 per cent have had a booster, mostly with traditional inactivated vaccines.

According to the People’s Daily report, Walvax is intensively advancing emergency authorisation with the Chinese drug regulator. The company said earlier this year that it was still processing clinical trials data.

The AWcorna vaccine was developed in early 2020 and started late-stage clinical trials in Indonesia in October. It has also been tested in Mexico and Guangxi province in southern China.

Advertisement