National

Regional

Taiwan, HK, Macao

Special Coverage

Focus

Society

Profiles

Sinovac gets first production license for A/H1N1 flu vaccine

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-03 15:38

BEIJING: China approved Thursday the A/H1N1 flu vaccine produced by domestic pharmaceutical company Sinovac, making it the first to get a production license in the global race.

A teacher checks the temperature of pupils at the entrance to a primary school in order to identify symptoms of the H1N1 flu virus in Luoyang, Henan province September 1, 2009.[Agencies]

The State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) issued the license for Sinovac's vaccine called Panflu.1 on Thursday, after it passed SFDA's experts evaluation on August 31.

Panflu.1 could safely be given to people aged from 3 to 60 years old in a single shot, 15 microgram dose, according to the evaluation report.

Related readings:  Mainland H1N1 flu cases approach 4,000  College closed after 7 diagnosed with A(H1N1)  A(H1N1) flu cases reaches 259 in Bangladesh  Green light for 2nd H1N1 flu vaccine What's the best bet in H1N1 outbreak?

Sinovac had the capacity to produce 5 million doses of vaccine before October1, and 20 million to 30 million doses per year, said president Yin Weidong.

Another A/H1N1 flu vaccine, produced by Chinese pharmaceutical company Hualan Biological Engineering Inc.,is also hopeful to be given the country's second approval this week.