BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese researchers plan to study using a COVID-19 vaccine from CanSino Biologics as a booster shot for people who have already been inoculated with other vaccines, clinical trial registration data showed.
China has not yet approved mixing doses of different vaccines using different technologies, but the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said in April the country was considering it as a way of boosting vaccine efficacy.
Five out of the seven vaccines used in China’s inoculation campaign are inactivated, meaning they use a coronavirus that cannot replicate in human cells. These include the Sinovac shot and two vaccines from Sinopharm.
CanSinoBIO’s shot uses a modified common cold virus known as adenovirus type-5 (Ad5) to carry genetic material from the coronavirus protein into the body.
A total of 300 healthy adults aged 18-59 years will be recruited for the trial.
Some participants who have received either one or two doses of inactivated vaccine will receive a booster shot from CanSinoBIO. The rest will be given the Sinovac vaccine as a booster for comparison.
The trial, which is currently recruiting participants, is sponsored by disease control authorities in the eastern province of Jiangsu, according to the clinical trial registration data on ClinicalTrials.gov, which is maintained by a department under the National Institute of Health of the United States.
The disease control authorities in Jiangsu are also running a trial that mixes doses produced by CanSinoBIO and a unit of Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products.
(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Ryan Woo. Editing by Jane Merriman)
