On May 21, researcher Shao Yiming, member of the working group for vaccine development under the National Health Commission and consultant of WHO vaccine R&D, visited the Nankai Public Health Lecture Hall. He gave a vivid science popularization of public health to the teachers and students of Nankai University with the topic of R&D strategies and application practice of COVID-19 vaccine.

Xu Jianguo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and President of Institute for Public Health of Nankai University, attended and presided over the lecture. Academician Xu Jianguo presented Shao Yiming with the Commemorative Certificate of Nankai Public Health Lecture Hall.

In the report, Shao Yiming reviewed the work of prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic, and introduced the brief history of human vaccine research and development, the research and development progress, the application practice as well as the challenges of COVID-19 vaccine. ‘‘The Chinese nation is the first one to use vaccines to control diseases.’’ ‘‘China has participated in the world’s five COVID-19 vaccine research and development routes, and has vaccines entering clinical trials. Among the 45 kinds of COVID-19 vaccine in clinical trials worldwide, 15 are from China. China has 5 types among the 12 types of COVID-19 vaccine that have entered the phase-3 clinic trials in the world. ’’ Shao Yiming said.

When talking about the application practice of COVID-19 vaccine, Shao Yiming discussed the safety, efficacy and accessibility of the vaccine, and put forward a new viewpoint on tertiary prevention of the vaccine. After vaccination, we should also continue to strictly follow prevention measures, including wearing masks in public, social distancing, hand-washing, and regular ventilation.

At the end of the lecture, as for the recent public concern about the COVID-19 variant strain reducing the protection rate of some vaccine, Shao Yiming put forward the development direction of COVID-19 vaccine in the future: multivalent vaccine to deal with mutations. He finally answered students’ questions about ‘‘RNA virus mutations’’ and ‘‘therapeutic vaccines’’ in detail.

(Reported by Hanyue Fu, translated by Xia Peng, edited by Davide Francolino and JianjingYun)