A Chinese inactivated vaccine against Omicron variants was approved for clinical trials by the National Medical Products Administration on Tuesday.

The vaccine, developed by the China National Biotec Group affiliated with Sinopharm, has been under research since December 2021, the company said.

Preliminary tests, such as safety evaluation in animals and immunogenicity research, showed that the vaccine can produce high neutralizing antibody titer against various variants including Omicron, it said.

The company previously developed a COVID-19 vaccine against the original COVID virus and conducted research on developing vaccines against virus variants such as Beta and Delta.

In the clinical trials, a randomized, double-blind and cohort study will be carried out among people aged 18 and above who have been inoculated with two or three doses of COVID-19 vaccines to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the inactivated vaccine.

(With input from Xinhua)