The coronavirus vaccine candidate of China -- BBIBP-CorV -- is effective and safe to consume. The vaccine also induces antibody responses in the body against SARS-CoV-2, according to the preliminary level findings..

The study, published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, has found that the antibody responses were demonstrated by all participants between 18 to 80 years.

However, participants who were aged 60 and above were slow to produce the response. Antibodies took 42 days to develop in elderly people, compared to 28 days for participants aged 18-59.

The authors believe that these people were slow to respond as the immune system gets weakened with age.

Study author Xiaoming Yang from the Beijing Institute of Biological Products Company Limited in China said in a statement: "Protecting older people is a key aim of a successful Covid-19 vaccine as this age group is at greater risk of severe illness from the disease."

Yang added: "It is therefore encouraging to see that BBIBP-CorV induces antibody responses in people aged 60 and older, and we believe this justifies further investigation."

The BBIBP-CorV vaccine used in the study reported here is based on a sample of the virus that was isolated from a patient in China.

The researchers wrote that the stocks of the virus were grown in the lab using cell lines and then inactivated using a chemical called beta-proprionolactone.

BBIBP-CorV includes the killed virus mixed with another component, aluminum hydroxide, which is called an adjuvant because it is known to boost immune responses, the study added.

Researchers, in the first stage, examined the optimal safe dose for BBIBP-CorV.

It involved 96 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 59 years and the second group of 96 participants aged between 60 years and 80 years.

Within each group, the vaccine was tested at three different dose levels, with two vaccinations inoculated on day zero and 28.

The fourth group within each age group (24 participants in each age group) were given two doses of a placebo vaccine. In total, in phase 1 of the study, 144 participants received the vaccine and 48 received the placebo.

In the second stage, the researchers aimed to identify the optimal timing schedule for vaccination.

Participants were asked to report any adverse events for the first seven days after each vaccination and these were verified by the research team.

"No serious adverse events were reported within 28 days of the final vaccination. There were no instances of clinically significant changes in organ functions detected in laboratory tests in any of the groups," the authors wrote in their research.

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