Thailand launches human trial of homemade COVID-19 vaccine | Voice of America

Bangkok-Thailand is struggling to secure shots from abroad in the worst wave of infection since the pandemic began, so local scientists are developing for COVID-19 42 homemade vaccine candidates Human testing has begun in two of them.

Homemade vaccines are not ready for mass production in time to help Thailand fight the latest waves. However, authorities and developers hope to arrive by next year to give Thailand and perhaps its neighbors booster shots tailored to the major variants of the new coronavirus.

“Vaccines are our strategy because they compete with variants such as South African and Indian variants,” said one of the most promising candidates at the Vaccine Research Center at Chulalongkorn University. According to Kiat Ruxrungtham, who is leading the development of people. Bangkok.

Shot the arm

For now, Thailand relies on a mixture of vaccines from foreign pharmaceutical companies to reach herd immunity by the end of the year.

Thailand, which kept infection rates low until 2020 due to strict border controls and strict social distances, secured relatively low doses early in the pandemic. Purchased millions of shots from China’s Sinovac as the most vulnerable, and signed a contract with AstraZeneca to allow local pharmaceutical company Siam Bioscience to produce the COVID-19 vaccine domestically.

Then, in April, the third wave arrived, mortality and infection rates reached record highs, vaccine shopping flourished, and contracts were signed with Pfizer, Modana, Johnson & Johnson, and China National. .. The government says it currently has 105.5 million doses sufficient to cover more than 70% of Thailand’s 69 million people and is looking for more.

However, Thai authorities and developers are still aware of the important role of homemade vaccines.

Tanarac Prepat, Deputy Director of Disease Control at the Ministry of Health, said the new vaccine would help keep Thailand safe once the effects of the first complete dose begin to diminish.

“There [is] There is increasing evidence that additional vaccinations may be needed soon. That is, the third, fourth, or fifth. I don’t know exactly about that, and I don’t know how often the antibodies need to be boosted, “he said.

“Therefore, in the long run, I think we will need a certain supply,” he said.

He said some of the vaccines that Thailand is developing may also be better at preventing infection from some of the more infectious mutants that are sweeping the world. .. The first alpha mutant identified in the UK is already the predominant strain in Thailand. The Ministry of Health’s School of Medicine recently warned that the more contagious delta variant first discovered in India could soon be inherited.

Independence

Tanarac teaches that Thailand needs to be self-reliant when and when it is needed, as most countries struggle to get masks and ventilators as well as vaccines. He said so.

“To secure [the] For the health of our people, we need to be able to rely on ourselves in the times [the] “Pandemic,” he said. “No matter how much money you have, if you don’t make it yourself, you won’t get the most important supplies of medical devices, medicines and vaccines.”

If all goes well, Thai laboratories could be vaccinated with tens of millions of country-specific COVID-19 vaccines by mid-next year, he said.

The state pharmaceutical company, Government Pharmaceutical Organization, has begun Phase 1 human trials of candidates using the Inactive Newcastle virus, which primarily infects birds, and more volunteers in Phase 2. Migrated to.

Chulalongkorn’s Vaccine Research Center began Phase 1 human trials on Monday. This is the first trial of COVID-19 developed in Southeast Asia using messenger RNA, the same technology pioneered by US pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Modana. It may be a vaccine.

BioNet-Asia, a long-established local pharmaceutical company, and Baiya Phytopharm, a startup, have not yet begun clinical trials in humans with their own vaccine candidates.

The Vaccine Research Center hoped to begin clinical trials in humans in late 2020. Instead, they had to wait for a slot to open in a US laboratory that manufactures clinical trial vaccines, and government funding, albeit generous, arrived more than expected.

Human experimentation with a first-generation vaccine is currently underway, and Kiat and his team will do the same for second-generation candidates targeting mutants of the virus within a few months. .. I already have a plan to do it. Other.

“Same technology, same prescription, you just change [gene] “Sequence,” he said. “If you have more data [from] The first generation can use that data to support the second generation, so there is no need to do the second generation. [try] The dose is too high as you will learn which dose is best from the first generation. “”

In the neighborhood

If approved, Kiat said BioNet-Asia will start shooting 50-80 million shots annually.

Lorenz von Seidlein, a vaccine expert at Mahidol Oxford in Thailand, will not only target major global variants of the new coronavirus, but will also learn mRNA techniques to make Thailand a regional or country-specific strain. You can also quickly adjust the vaccine to suit your combination. Tropical Medicine Research Unit.

“Therefore, they would say that if there is a Thai-specific strain combination, it’s probably a niche. This new variant, which we don’t know yet, may appear next year, but we can deal with it soon. “He said, in combination with the variant that was here before.

Profit could spread to Thailand’s neighbors, some of which are fighting the worst wave of infection since the outbreak of the pandemic, including Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Kiat said that if Phase 1 results are promising, several other Southeast Asian countries are interested in participating in a late Phase 2 human trial of the vaccine by his team. He said he was particularly interested in the second-generation vaccines they were working on and might consider ordering.

“Our intention is to be able to supply neighboring countries with efficient production and high quality vaccines … through COVAX etc.” He says he is subsidized for COVID-free or poor countries. I did. Mentioned an international program to supply 19 shots.