Thailand is beginning trials on its locally-developed Covid-19 vaccine while setting its eyes for a rollout of the vaccine next year.
Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul says the development would enable Thailand to be self-reliant as the country would not have to reply on vaccines from other countries.
“Production is expected to begin next year, with an estimated 25-30 million doses annually.”
The vaccine consists of an inactivated virus to trigger immunity, using egg-based technology.
So far, the GPO says trials have shown promising results.
A total of 460 volunteers would be recruited for the human trials. They must be in good health and free of Covid-19.
Volunteers will be screened and have their backgrounds checked and undergo health and blood checks.
Punnee Pitisuttithum, the head of the Vaccine Trial Centre at Mahidol University’s Tropical Medicine Department, said the first human trial was conducted on 4 volunteers yesterday.
The GPO is aware of SARS-COV-2 virus mutations so the vaccine is also being developed to help with this situation, adding the pilot vaccine showed it was effective against the South African strain.
Source: The Thaiger
