China, WHO in talks for assessing COVID-19 vaccines for global use

China is in talks to have its locally-produced COVID-19 vaccines assessed by the World Health Organisation, as a step toward making them available for international use, a WHO official said on Tuesday. Hundreds of thousands of essential workers and other groups considered at high risk in China have been given locally-developed vaccines even as clinical trials had not been fully completed. Meanwhile, the locally-developed vaccines had raised safety concerns among experts. Socorro Escalate, WHOࢀ™s the coordinator for essential medicines and health technologies in the Western Pacific region, told a news conference conducted online that China had held preliminary discussions with…