Sinovac Biotech has created a new COVID-19 vaccine by growing the novel coronavirus in the VERO monkey cell line and inactivating it with chemicals.
By Jon CohenScience's COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.For the first time, one of the many COVID-19 vaccines in development has protected an animal, rhesus macaques, from infection by the new coronavirus, scientists report.
The vaccine, an old-fashioned formulation consisting of a chemically inactivated version of the virus, produced no obvious side effects in the monkeys, and human trials began on 16 April.Researchers from Sinovac Biotech, a privately held Beijing-based company, gave two different doses of their COVID-19 vaccine to a total of eight rhesus macaque monkeys.