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The announcement that human trials will begin in early May comes amid criticism of Thailand’s COVID strategy.
Thailand’s second domestically developed vaccine will soon undergo human testing, officials say, adding that the plan was to produce up to five million doses by the end of the year.
The vaccine, developed by Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, had been successful in trials in mice and monkeys and will be tested in humans in late April or early May, Kiat Ruxrungtham of the Chula Vaccine Research Center said Thursday.
“By the end of the year, we should have a production capacity of one to five million doses per year,” Kiat told a press conference, adding that this could then increase to about 20 million doses per year.
The announcement comes amid criticism that Thailand’s vaccine strategy has been slow and too dependent on AstraZeneca injections produced by local manufacturer Siam Bioscience, owned by the country’s king.
The “ChulaCov19” vaccines developed in Thailand are being produced initially in California, but will be produced locally in later stages by the Thai company Bionet Asia, Kiat said.
He added that the university was already developing vaccines to protect against the highly contagious variants of COVID-19 identified by the British and South Africans.
Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul welcomed progress towards greater vaccine safety in Thailand, which has recorded 25,111 infections and 82 deaths since the pandemic began.
“We don’t bet on a horse, we own the stable in Thailand,” he told reporters.
Another vaccine developed in Thailand involving Mahidol University is also scheduled for human trials, but will also not be available, if approved, until later than locally manufactured AstraZeneca doses.
The government has ordered 26 million doses of the locally manufactured AstraZeneca injections for use in vaccines starting in June and plans to administer 10 million doses per month thereafter.
However, Anutin appeared to shy away from an earlier statement that Thailand would import 50,000 “early doses” of AstraZeneca sometime this month.
“We asked them if they could send doses earlier if they had them, but it is not an agreement,” he told reporters.
Thailand also recorded the first death of a doctor who had contracted the virus from patients on Thursday, Anutin said.
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