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(Photo: VNE)

Volunteers can enjoy certain benefits, including injection of carefully-studied vaccine proved safe and effective on pre-clinical stage, general health-check and decent care from top-notch doctors in Hanoi Medical University, travel expenses.

Those with qualified screening will get 2 injections of 0.5ml each, 28 days apart. The 150 volunteers will be divided into 5 groups, of which one group will receive placebo. Volunteers will be monitored for the next 24 hours at the hospital, no quarantine needed. They are expected to have 8 periodically medical check-ups with blood tests within 12 months, thereby, researchers could evaluate their health condition and the amount of antibodies post-injection.

Phase 1’s goal is to evaluate the safety and immune response of the vaccine to further select the two most optimal dose groups before moving onto the second phase, MOH reported.

One medical staff in Hanoi recieving AstraZeneca vaccine (Photo: VNE)

IVAC started to recruit volunteers for the trial on March 5 in coordination with the National Institute of Hygiene And Epidemiology and Hanoi Medical University. Duong Huu Thai, IVAC Director on March 4 said that the Institute had completed training stages on testing procedures, examination, and volunteer recruitment for the first phase of human trials of the Covivac vaccine.

The second phase of the human trial is scheduled to commence in July and the final phase in November.

Thai said that the pre-clinical studies in India, the U.S., and Vietnam have shown that Covivac is effective against the new virus variants from the U.K. and South Africa. The vaccine would cost around VND60.000 ($2.60).

Scientists are currently studying its efficacy against more strains, he added.

Covivac vaccine (Photo: MOH)

The first locally-produced COVID-19 vaccine, Nanocovax, made by Nanogen Pharmaceutical Biotechnology JSC, entered its second phase of human trials on February 26.

Results of the trial will be announced in May 2021 before preparing for the third-stage trial during which only one single shot of the vaccine will be administered to 10,000-15,000 people from both domestic and foreign pandemic-hit regions, said Lieutenant-General Do Quyet, Director of the Military Medical University.

Vietnam has two other COVID-19 candidate vaccines being developed, which are VABIOTECH by the Company for Vaccine and Biological Production No 1, and POLYVAC by the Centre for Research and Production of Vaccines and Biologicals.

The government has also speeded up foreign procurement to vaccinate some prioritized categories of people.

It has ordered 30 million doses from AstraZeneca, and the first batch of 117,600 doses arrived in HCMC last week and will be given to people working on the front lines like medical workers, contact tracers, and officials on Covid-19 prevention and control committees, Vnexpress reported.

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