China , June 7:

Developing a coronavirus vaccine is an “orchestrated dance” and China is developing it based on principles of safety and efficiency, a Chinese official said Sunday at a press conference of The White Paper on fighting COVID-19 China in Action, calling for enhanced international cooperation.

China is willing to promote international cooperation and will make it a global public product, as the country previously promised, once the vaccine is successfully put onto the market, Wang Zhigang, the director of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, said at the press conference.

A vaccine is still the most effective method to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and various countries have made vaccine R&D a priority in their battle against it. But the process of developing a vaccine is a long period full of difficulties and uncertainty, Wang stressed, calling for enhanced international cooperation on the issue.

Five COVID-19 vaccines have so far been reportedly delivered into clinical trials in China. Some experts predicted that China may be the first country in the world to successfully achieve large scale production of a coronavirus vaccine.

On Saturday, a Chinese biological product company in Guizhou announced that a COVID-19 vaccine developed by a team led by top epidemiologist Chen Wei is expected to be put into mass production by the company once it is available.

Chen’s team developed an adenovirus vector COVID-19 vaccine on March 16, the first domestically developed COVID-19 candidate vaccine to enter clinical trials.

On May 22, the vaccine also became the first in the world to disclose complete phase one clinical trial results and declare dual immune response in the recipients.