China is scheduled to publish the initial outcome Wednesday of the world's first clinical testing of a vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a Beijing-based newspaper reported Tuesday.

Lin Jiangtao, head of the Respiratory Medical Department with the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, told the Beijing News that the four volunteers involved in the test are in good condition after they were injected with a SARS vaccine or a SARS virus-free placebo on May 22 at the hospital.

The volunteers are three healthy male students and a female from Beijing-based universities.

The volunteers took blood tests and were observed for reaction daily in the first three days. The whole observation process will last 210 days.

Neither the volunteers nor the doctors were informed of whether the injection was a vaccine or a SARS-virus free placebo, developed by Beijing Kexing Bio-product Co., Ltd.

The four are the first group of 36 healthy volunteers aged from 21 to 40 who were selected for the testing.

Approving the first phase of the clinical testing in January this year, China has become the first nation in the world to approve clinical testing of the vaccine on humans.

(Xinhua News Agency May 25, 2004)