China has approved a hepatitis E vaccine, claimed to be the world’s first, said the Ministry of Science and Technology Wednesday. The vaccine received the certificate for medicine production in December 2011, according to the State Food and Drug Administration. A team of researchers from Xiamen University and Xiamen Innovax Biotech Co. Ltd. in southeast China’s Fujian province had worked for 14 years to develop the vaccine, and the 863 program, the government-funded high-tech development initiative, began to sponsor the research in 2005, said the ministry statement.
