Vietnam Plans to Start 2nd Phase of Nanocovax COVID-19 Vaccine Test on Feb 26

Vietnamese health experts have planned to inject the first shots of the homemade coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine, named Nanocovax and developed by Vietnamese producer Nanogen Pharmaceutical Biotechnology JSC, on local volunteers for the second phase of the vaccine tests on February 26, state media reported. The move came after they completed the first phase with good immune responses from 120 shots of different volumes for 60 volunteers. Vietnam Military Medical University in Hanoi and Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City will collaborate to carry out the vaccine tests on 560 volunteers aged from 18 to 65 in the capital city of Hanoi and the Mekong Delta province of Long An. In the second phase, there are only two groups of volunteers, including one with 50 micrograms and another with 7 micrograms. The second phase is expected to end in late April and have more accurate evaluations at that time. Nanocovax has become the country’s first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine to enter clinical tests, with first shots on December 17 last year. Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long has expressed his confidence in developing local COVID-19 vaccines, saying that besides Nanocovax, two more local producers have started to enter the first phase of clinical tests. The Vietnamese Ministry of Health has allowed AstraZeneca Vietnam Co. Ltd. to import 204,000 doses of AstraZeneca coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine for emergency use amid the on-going complicated developments of the pandemic in the country. (Bo Y Te, ncov.moh.gov.vn)