China says it could have a coronavirus vaccine ready to use as early as November

• A coronavirus vaccine being developed in China could be ready as early as November, according to a senior Chinese scientist;
• China currently has four coronavirus vaccines in development.
• Guizhen, head of biosafety at China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said: 'It will be very soon. The progress is currently very smooth.'
• There are 176 coronavirus vaccines being developed across the world, and there are likely to be at least fifty undergoing human trials by the end of 2020, according to a Business Insider review.

A coronavirus vaccine being developed in China could be ready as early as November, according to a senior Chinese health official.

The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention's chief biosafety expert, Wu Guizhen, said on Monday that one of the four vaccines being developed in the country could be ready for use as early as the winter months, according to a Reuters report.

Guizhen, told the state broadcaster CCTV on Monday: "It will be very soon. The progress is currently very smooth."

China has been giving key workers shots of an experimental coronavirus vaccine since July. Zheny Zhongei, the head of the National Health Commission (NHC) science and technology center, indicated that health workers and border officials were among those on whom the vaccine was being tested.

Guizhen said that she had taken an experimental vaccine herself in April and had experienced no adverse reaction to it.

It comes amid a global race for a vaccine which has already seen Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, announce that scientists in Moscow had developed one which is safe and effective.

Putin's announcement was widely criticised, however, amid suggestions the vaccine had not been tested fully.

Germany's health minister Jens Spahn said he was "very sceptical" that Russia's vaccine had been proven to be fully safe, while Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious-disease expert, said he "seriously doubts" whether Moscow had yet developed a safe and effective vaccine that was ready for use.

There are 176 coronavirus vaccines being developed across the world, and there are likely to be at least fifty undergoing human trials by the end of 2020, according to a Business Insider review.

A total of 32 vaccine candidates are now being tried on humans in clinical trials, one of which could be proven as safe as effective by the end of 2020.