China's top drug authority has licensed a new vaccine against poliomyelitis, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Marketed under the brand name Ai Bi Wer, the product is produced by the Institute of Medical Biology of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.
"This new vaccine is a critically important weapon in the fight against polio as the world nears the eradication of this dreaded disease," Bernhard Schwartlander, the WHO representative in China, said.
The production of quality inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) is a breakthrough in China's fight to sustain polio-free status and to eliminate polio from the world, he added. The WHO is considering the use of the new vaccine in its global polio treatment program.
According to the WHO, China is poliomyelitis free since 2000.
An estimated number of 16 million newborn babies are to get oral polio vaccine, or OPV, under the national vaccination program. In extreme cases, the recipient can have paralytic polio because the vaccine contains a weakened but still living virus.
The IPV poses no risk of causing vaccine-associated paralytic polio, according to Lance Rodewald, team leader of the WHO China Office Expanded Program on Immunization.
About one in every 1 million children who take the vaccine develops that side effect, experts said.
Polio is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. It invades the nervous system and can cause lifelong paralysis, or even death. Although there is no cure for polio, it can be prevented through timely vaccination of children, China Daily reported.