(Yicai Global) Oct. 14 -- Recent reports that China National Pharmaceutical Group’s Covid-19 vaccine can already be reserved in Beijing and Wuhan are incorrect, the Health Times reported, citing a company insider.

A unit of CNGP, better known as Sinopharm, introduced a WeChat mini app at the China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing last month to find out how willing people would be to receive a Covid-19 jab. Nearly 380,000 people surveyed said they would be up for it and over 70,000 applied for it. This app has since been disabled, the report said.

Similarly, a QR code on the Beijing-based firm’s website that could reportedly also be used to book an inoculation has been taken down, it added.

Despite this hiccup, trials of Sinopharm’s Covid-19 vaccine are progressing better and faster than expected, Yang Xiaoming, chairman of the firm’s unit China National Biotec Group, said at the 13th China Bioindustry Convention in Wuhan last month. The jab is very close to success and is expected to be on sale by the end of the year, he added.

Vaccines must pass three phases of clinical trials to demonstrate their safety and efficacy before they are approved for market, said Yang Sheng, head of the National Medical Products Administration's Division of Drug Registration Administration. They also need to complete commercial scale verification to demonstrate controllable quality, he added.

China has 11 Covid-19 vaccines that have entered clinical trials, Wu Yuanbin, head of the Ministry of Science and Technology's Department of Social Development Science and Technology, said on Sept. 25. Three inactivated vaccines, which used a killed as opposed to an attenuated form of the virus, and one adenoviral vector-based vaccine, which uses a weakened adenovirus to carry the genetic code needed to manufacture specific antigens, have already started Phase III trials and are progressing well, he added.

Editor: Kim Taylor