Thailand is about to launch human trials of its first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine this month. If it is successful, the country could emerge as an important supplier of mRNA vaccines in Asia, making it a small but significant player in the dash to adopt the new technology.
Last year saw the launch of the first viable vaccines that use messenger RNA to prompt an immune response, one developed by Pfizer in New York City and BioNTech in Mainz, Germany, and the other by Moderna in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
These have proven highly effective against COVID-19, and have so far been given to hundreds of millions of people.
In Asia, home-grown mRNA vaccines are already undergoing trials in China, India and Japan.
Thailand is a relative newcomer, but its efforts have increased in urgency as its neighboring nations across South and Southeast Asia suffer both vaccine shortages and renewed COVID-19 surges.
According to immunologist Kiat Ruxrungtham, founder of the Chula Vaccine Research Center at Chulalongkorn University, ChulaCov19 has shown promising results in unpublished preclinical studies in mouse and primate models.
He said the center plans to begin phase I clinical trials in people in June, and are already developing next-generation vaccines against the B.1.351 and B.1.1.7 variants of the virus. They are also keeping a close eye on B.1.617, which first emerged in India.
Source: https://www.chula.ac.th/en/clipping/47302/ (NNT)
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