’s Covivac (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam’s second homegrown candidate vaccine Covivac began
the second stage of clinical trials in the northern province of Thai Binh’s Vu
Thu district on August 11 with the screening testing to choose qualified
volunteers.
The screening testing will be conducted for six days, and the
first jabs are expected to be given on August 18.
A total of 375 volunteers, chosen from 750 local residents
in Vu Thu district, will be classified in three groups for the 3mcg and 6 mcg
dosages and injections of vaccine AstraZeneca (instead of placebo infections in
the first phase).
Earlier, assessing the first stage of Covivac human trials
on over 120 volunteers since March 15, the National Ethics Committee in
Biomedical Research under the Ministry of Health concluded that the vaccine was
safe, well tolerated, immunogenic, and eligible for the second stage.
has been developed and produced by the Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals (IVAC). It
uses primary chicken embryo cell culture – a technique the institute used
previously to successfully produce seasonal flu vaccines.
Associate Professor, Dr. Vu Dinh Thiem, director of the
NIHE’s clinical trial center, said that the selected volunteers must be over 18
years old, possibly up to 70-80 years old, including those with chronic
diseases such as diabetes, hypertension but under stable treatment.
If the second stage goes well, by the end of September, the
research team will collect blood samples from the volunteers on the 42nd day
after their first jabs to evaluate the vaccine’s immunogenicity.
On the 57th day, the volunteers will continue to undergo
physical examination and take blood tests for evaluation and analysis before
the team proposes the third stage of trials on 1,000 volunteers./.
Source: VietnamPlus
