The trial by China National Biotec Group, which produces the Sinopharm vaccine, will take place at the community vaccination center at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park Sports Centre in Sai Ying Pun. They will be further randomly split into three groups, with one receiving the original strain vaccine and the other two receiving Omicron-targeting vaccines produced by two manufacturing plants. "The biggest challenge is that Omicron can evade the immunity response and that immunity levels of existing vaccines against Omicron are significantly lowered, reducing protection for humans," said Hung, necessitating a vaccine to prevent the next outbreak. Sinovac has also been developing an Omicron vaccine since November. It has applied for clinical trials and received approval mid-April after the vaccine was proved to be safe and effective in animal tests.

Source: The Standard June 01, 2022 01:13 UTC