The vaccine is the first one approved for general use in China.
Chen Shifei, the deputy commissioner of Chinaâs Medical Production Administration, said at a news conference Thursday that the decision had been made the previous night.
The vaccine is an inactivated, two-dose vaccine from the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, a subsidiary of state-owned conglomerate Sinopharm.
In this photo Dec. 25, 2020 released by Xinhua News Agency, packages of COVID-19 inactivated vaccine products are seen at a production plant of the Beijing Biological Products Institute Co., Ltd, a unit of state-owned Sinopharm in Beijing. The Chinese drugmaker said Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020 its coronavirus vaccine was found to be 79.3% effective at preventing infection in preliminary data from the final round of testing, moving Beijing closer to possibly being able to fulfill its pledge to suppl(AP)