Vietnam eyeing own Covid-19 vaccine ‘by end of next year’
WITH the current progress, Vietnam is hopeful of having a safe and effective domestically made Covid-19 vaccine by the end of next year, a health official said.
Nguyen Ngo Quang, vicedirector of the Administration of Science, Technology and Training under the Ministry of Health, made the remarks at a Wednesday meeting on speeding up the Covid-19 vaccine and regulations in Vietnam amid the current state of public health emergency.
Quang said that on average, it would take at least three to five years to develop a vaccine with standard procedures.
But now by facilitating procedures, all different stages are conducted and results reviewed nearly simultaneously, so a vaccine for the novel strain of coronavirus could be attained faster.
In clinical trials on humans, for example, after initial results from Phase I trials where the humans are introduced to a vaccine are available, researchers can move immediately to Phase II and continue to supervise Phase I without needing to wait until the phase is formally concluded.
Licensing and authorisation procedures will also be facilitated, he said.
“Of course, even with this expedited timeline, the vaccine’s quality must still be ensured. The product must be able to prevent coronavirus infection based on ethical principles in medical research,” Quang said.
Acting Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said at the meeting that the world is stretched thin in the fight against the pandemic as cases and deaths continue to soar across regions.
Vietnam has got a good handle on the coronavirus pandemic, with no new community infections for 97 days and the majority of its confirmed tally of 408 being imported cases that were quarantined upon arrival.
However, as social distancing is only a temporary measure to prevent outbreaks that cripple the health system and public health, Long noted that the fight against the pandemic will continue to be an uphill battle while there is no vaccine.
Finding Covid-19 immunisation is currently among the priorities of many countries around the world, Long said. “Without Covid-19 vaccines, there’s no going to back to our familiar ‘normal’.”
Vietnam is currently among 42 countries in the world that can manufacture the stock used in its own national expanded immunisation programme.
Long said: “I am hopeful that Vietnam can make its own Covid-19 vaccine, to be able to reliably supply to Vietnamese people, but still have mechanisms in place to gain access to vaccines made elsewhere in the world also.”
As Vietnam’s National Regulatory Authority (NRA) for vaccines is considered to be compliant with the World Health Organisation ( WHO)’s standards, a domesticallymade Covid-19 vaccine would be easy to export.
There are currently about 163 vaccine candidates in progress across the world, with about 23 already entering human trials and the remainder in pre-clinical trial stage.
The UK-based University of Oxford earlier this week announced that their vaccine appears to be safe and is able to cause the immune system to generate antibodies and T-cells to fight off coronavirus in a trial that involves 1,077 people.
A vaccine made in China’s Wuhan, where the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (which causes Covid-19) is believed to have originated and the first epicentre of the current pandemic, is also showing promise.
Currently, there are four companies and institutes – Vaccine and Biological One Member Ltd Co ( Vabiotech), Centre for Research and Production of Vaccines and Biologicals (Polyvac), Institute of Vaccines and Biological Medical (Ivac), and Nanogen Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Co Ltd – working on a Covid-19 vaccine in Vietnam and the initial results are promising.
The State-owned company Vabiotech, cooperating with the University of Bristol, UK, is currently the frontrunner in the vaccine race in Vietnam, with a candidate demonstrating positive initial results on mice.
British ambassador to Vietnam Gareth Ward said at the meeting: “The most important thing is that the global pandemic reminds us about the importance of partnership and international collaboration.
“The global pandemic has taught us that no one is safe until everyone is safe. And vaccine development and equitable access is a pathway to keep us safe,” he said, adding that the UK is happy to continue the partnership with Vietnam on vaccines and wider public health cooperation.
Acting health minister Long stressed the Vietnamese government “welcomes all units that are capable to get involved in the researching and manufacturing of a Covid-19 vaccine”.
He has also pledged to facilitate funding for units reaching promising results and ones that can have industrial-scale manufacturing capabilities.
“We are allowed to have the ambition of being to make hundreds of millions of safe vaccine shots, not only to serve domestic needs but also for export,” Long said.