Illustrative photo. (Source: VNA)According to the ministry, ARCT-154 is a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine designed to act against coronavirus variants, including the Delta.
The clinical trials will be carried out in three phases withthe participation of 21,000 volunteers, including 100 in phase one,300 in phase two and 20,600 in phase three.
On August 2, the MoH approved a proposal on human clinicaltrials of the ARCT-154 vaccine. The vaccine's production technology was bought by VinBioCare Biotechnology JSC, a subsidy of Vietnam's leadingmultisectoral conglomerate Vingroup.
VinBioCare has begun construction of a vaccine productionfacility in Hanoi’s Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park with total investment of more than 200million USD. The facility has a designed capacity of 200 million doses peryear.
The installation of equipment for the facility is expectedto be completed in November.
After completing the three-phase human clinical trial, VinBioCaresaid it would send the results to the ministry for approval for emergency useacross the country in December. The first batch of vaccines is expected to beavailable in early 2022.
ARCT-154 is the third COVID-19 vaccine put into humanclinical trials in Vietnam and the first developed with mRNA technology.
The first COVID-19 vaccine tested on humans is Nanocovax, aproduct of Nanogen Pharmaceutical Biotechnology JSC based on recombinantDNA/protein technology. The vaccine has gone through three phases of theclinical trials with more than 13,620 volunteers. Results from the first twotrial phases showed that all volunteers developed antibodies againstSARS-CoV-2.
The second vaccine, Covivac, developed by the Institute of Vaccinesand Medical Biologicals (IVAC), is expected to enter phase three in September2021./.
