The preliminary findings of the test for the coronavirus vaccine being developed by CanSino Biologics have shown favourable results, a study showed. The potential COVID-19 vaccine appeared safe and triggered an immune response in healthy adults in the early trials, the study published in the health journal The Lancet said. The early trials showed that the experimental vaccine, Ad5-nCoV, may help train the human body to resist infection by the new SARS-CoV-2 virus. The study includes 108 participants aged between 18 and 60 years and with no history of coronavirus infection. The phase 1 trials were conducted in Wuhan, Hubei province.

It comes days after biotechnology company Moderna had said that the preliminary findings of its test for coronavirus vaccine development have shown favourable results. The experimental vaccine appears to be safe and able to trigger an immune response against the infection, Moderna had said. There are more than 100 coronavirus vaccines being currently developed globally.

Meanwhile, Union Health Minister Harsh Varshan on Sunday said that at least four of the candidate coronavirus vaccines are soon expected to enter the clinical trial stage. "There are over 100 candidate vaccines  which are at different levels of development. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is coordinating the efforts. India is also actively contributing in it," Vardhan said in a social media interaction with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader G V L Narasimha Rao.

"As far as I know, four of our fourteen  vaccines will soon be in the clinical trial stage, within 4 to 5 months. All the 14 are right now at the pre-clinical trial stage," he added.