Chinese Ambassador in Dhaka Li Jiming wants to be the first volunteer in the phase-3 trial of the Sinovac’s Covid-19 vaccine to be applied on Bangladesh’s healthcare workers.
“Ambassador will be the first one once it (trial) is approved by due Bangladesh authorities,” Deputy Head of Mission Yan Hualong said in a facebook post.
“As I have no chance to win against him (ambassador), I’ll be happy to be the second one,” he said.
Earlier on Sunday, Bangladesh Medical Research Council (BMRC) gave the ethical permission to conduct the trial of the Chinese vaccine by the icddr,b in Dhaka.
Director of the regulatory body Dr. Mahmood-uz-jahan had told Bangladesh Post that their ethical committee gave the permission following icddr,b’s submission of protocol.
There was no official confirmation of the contract signing with the Sinovac Research and Development Limited Company.
The BMRC director said the research would be conducted on healthcare workers in seven hospitals - Mughda Medical College Hospital, Dhaka Medical College Hospital Burn Unit-1, Kurmitola General Hospital, Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital, Kuwait-Bangladesh Friendship Hospital, Dhaka Medical College Hospital Unit -2 and Dhaka Mohanagar Hospital.
“4200 candidates will be taken with half of them will get the vaccine,” he had said, adding that the vaccine would be applied by taking consent from them.
According to the WHO, there are 19 vaccine trials in clinical evaluation and hundreds being developed and tested around the world to stop the pandemic.
China's Sinovac Biotech is one of three companies conducting the phase 3 trial. They have already started the trial in Brazil.
AstraZeneca's vaccine, developed by researchers at the Oxford University, and China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) are the only other candidates in the Phase 3 trials.
Both of them showed promising results in the Phase 12 trials.
