A/H1N1 vaccine for children below 3 safe so far: ministry
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China has begun clinical trial use of A/H1N1 flu vaccine designed for children between 6 to 35 months old, and "none of the volunteers has exhibited any signs of severe adverse reactions after receiving the first shot," the Ministry of Health said Friday.
The clinical trials began at the beginning of this month and were conducted in three bases in provincial-level areas including Guangxi, Jiangsu and Hunan, according to the ministry.
Three vaccine producers - Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech Company, Zhejiang Tianyuan Bio-Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., and Shanghai Institute of Biological Products - were responsible for conducting the tests, it said.
Among 935 participants, 209 were children between 6 to 12 months old, 363 aged one, and 363 aged two. They would begin to receive another round of vaccination from Dec. 23, the ministry said in a report on its website.
The ministry and the State Food and Drug Administration approved the trials to better protect children aged below three, who have a high risk to infect the A/H1N1 strain, the report reads.
The Chinese mainland has reported 91 deaths from the A/H1N1 influenza in the week from Dec. 14 to 20, latest figures from the ministry showed.
As of Thursday, almost 43.33 million people nationwide had been inoculated against the A/H1N1 flu while more than 75.4 million doses of vaccines had been approved for use.
