COVID-19 vaccine: Thailand hopes to start human clinical trials this year

Thailand on Saturday, started COVID-19 vaccine trials on monkeys, after positive results were seen in mice.

National Vaccine Institute director, Nakorn Premsri said if the trials show promising results, the vaccine would be tested on humans by end of this year or early next year.

"If everything goes to plan, the production of the vaccine will start next year," he told a COVID-19 daily press conference here today.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 vaccine development director of Chulalongkorn University, Kiet Rakrungtham said 10,000 doses of the RNA vaccine would be produced for human trials involving 5,000 volunteers.

"Two factories will produce the vaccine. We expect the first factory to produce the vaccine by October (for human trials)," he said.

Meanwhile, Thailand reported zero new COVID-19 cases and fatalities over the last 24 hours, keeping the number of infections at 3,040 with 56 deaths.

Today is the fourth day in this month that there were no new daily cases,

Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) assistant spokeswoman Dr Panprapa Yongtrakul said total of confirmed cases remained at 3,040 cases, 2,921 patients have recovered and returned home while 63 are still warded.

Bangkok reported the highest number of cases with 1,708 followed by 730 (southern), 396 (central), northeastern (111) and 95 (northern), she said.

Thailand, the first country outside China to report COVID-19 cases, expects to have its own vaccine for the deadly virus by next year.

Thailand is joining the race to develop its own vaccine for COVID-19 - one of 100 potential vaccines being produced worldwide.

-- BERNAMA