Vietnam hoped to produce COVID-19 vaccines in late Q3

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam is expected to have the of
locally-produced vaccines at the end of the third quarter of 2021.

The statement was made by Deputy Director of the Department
of Science Technology and Training under the Health Ministry Nguyen Ngo Quang,
who is Chief of the Office of the National Programme on Vaccine Research and
Development, at a meeting of the Standing Board of the Steering Committee for International
Cooperation in Clinical Trials of COVID-19 Vaccines on March 22.

Quang said that Vietnam is currently making research on
three types of COVID-19 vaccine.

Accordingly, the second phase of human trials on NanoCovax
vaccine, produced by the Nanogen Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, is being
conducted, with the second dose to be injected on March 26.

The results of the second phase are expected to be announced
in May as scheduled, while the third phase will be conducted from May to
September. The vaccine is hoped to be registered for circulation in September,
three months shorter than planned. Earlier, the trial time of the second phase
was also shortened from six months to three months.

A system on monitoring and assessing vaccines’ protection
efficiency in Vietnam and other countries is expected to be operated from
September 2021 – September 2022.

Meanwhile, the first injections of the first phase of human
trials on Vietnam’s second homegrown candidate vaccine COVIVAC, developed by
the Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals (IVAC), were made on March
15.

An overview of the meeting (Photo: VNA)

The first phase of human trials on the country’s third homegrown
candidate vaccine, developed by VABIOTECH, is hoped to begin in April.

Standing members of the Steering Committee for International
Cooperation in Clinical Trials of COVID-19 Vaccines agreed that the outcomes of
pre-clinical trials of all three vaccines were assessed good thanks to
Vietnamese units’ close coordination with prestigious vaccine producers and
research units over the world and their compliance with international standards
and procedures in vaccine research and development.

Speaking at the meeting, ,
who is head of the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and
Control, hailed efforts made by the Ministries of Health and Science and
Technology, and vaccine research and development units.

He requested extra efforts to speed up
domestically-developed vaccine research and production.

At the event, the Health Ministry affirmed that it has no
policy that allows businesses and companies to import ./.