Vietnam says will mobilise resources to accelerate Covid-19 vaccine research

VIETNAM will mobilise resources to accelerate the progress of creating a Covid-19 vaccine, the Ministry of Health has said.

The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Vietnam has shown positive testing results on animals, serving as an important foundation to progress and complete the vaccine, said the ministry.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam on Tuesday held a meeting with the ministry and scientists on coronavirus testing kits and the Covid-19 vaccine in Hanoi.

Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said several countries had tested Covid-19 vaccines on mice and chickens before moving on to apes, and eventually human trials.

Vietnamese scientists were working on developing a Covid-19 vaccine and plan to manufacture them en masse.

The ministry will continue to promote vaccine research and production, he said. Besides vaccine research following normal standards, it will prepare plans in response to the widespread pandemic.

It will re-organise researching teams and work with businesses on vaccine research, he said.

“Vietnam will stay updated on vaccine production technology by learning from the world’s Covid19 response experience. Vietnam’s vaccine development projects not only aim to manufacture a vaccine that the world is expecting, but also make Vietnam more flexible in vaccine stocks,” said Long.

Dam said: “Vaccines are an important factor in disease prevention and control.”

Vietnam should take advantage of all opportunities to research and manufacture a Covid-19 vaccine, he said, with emphasis on linking vaccine research with production.

At the meeting, the ministry said Vietnam had successfully manufactured test kits for Sars-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19, with high accuracy including quick antibody tests and polymerise chain reaction (PCR) testing which detects the presence of antigens.

The ministry will make adjustments to test kit production strategies to ensure quality and testing efficiency to manufacture a large number of kits.

Later in the day, Dam chaired a meeting between the National Steering Committee on Covid-19 Prevention and Control and representatives from World Health Organisation ( WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The international experts had high praise for Vietnam’s efforts in containing the coronavirus, as well as Vietnamese scientists and producers for researching and manufacturing anti-pandemic supplies.

WHO representative in Vietnam Kidong Park said the lockdown measures deployed to slow or cut off the virus outbreaks have put enormous strains on many countries’ economies, prompting them to slowly reopen or consider resuming international flights and opening up their borders.

However, given the current spread of the virus, countries should be cautious before making these decisions, said the WHO official.

Park said international flights could only be resumed when five conditions are met – the outbreaks in both the destination and the departure locations are under control, the health systems can cope with a surge in Covid-19 cases, the disease surveillance system can effectively detect, trace and manage imported cases, there are effective disease monitoring efforts at the border and essential travel is prioritised.

Vietnam’s borders have remained closed against foreign entries since late March and a few exempted cases will need to undergo 14-day quarantine to prevent risks of community virus spread as the country yesterday marked 75 days without any domestic community infections.

Health experts said Vietnam should ramp up its testing capacity as well as information campaigns to ensure the public can respond well to new surges in cases.

Dam said he hoped the WHO and other international organisations could help share Vietnamese Covid-19 testing products with other countries in the global fight against the pandemic.