China develops A/H1N1 vaccine under strict safety protocol

China is the first country in the world to issue a production license for a vaccine against the A/H1N1 flu. Relying on domestic technology, China is capable of developing and manufacturing the vaccine at least 6 months ahead of other countries.

All countries must procure virus samples from the World Health Organization if they want to develop a flu vaccine. However, China used its own reagents before receiving a sample from the WHO. To ensure the safety of the vaccine, health authorities applied a strict safety protocol, which greatly reduced development time.

Wang Junzhi, Deputy Director of National Pharmaceutical Institute, said, "We got the standard reagent from the WHO after we published our first clinical test outcome. Then we compared ours with the WHO reagents. They showed no difference. That means we did not need to check our clinical test outcome."