Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long and Minister of Defence Phan Van Giang visit the volunteers
The Military Medical University planned to vaccinate 1,000 volunteers in the first stage. Over 6,000 volunteers have registered at the Military Medical University. After medical screening, 600 people met the requirements for the trial. The volunteers will be divided into two groups. One group will be given a 25mcg dose of vaccine and the other will be given a placebo, a harmless substance.
Nano Covax which is developed by Nanagen is the most promising Covid-19 vaccine made in Vietnam. The Covivac vaccine developed by Ivac is in preparation for the second stage of the clinical trial.
Nano Covax was developed in May 2020 and the clinical trial was started seven months later.
In the second phase, Nano Covax was given to 554 volunteers, 109 of them are over 60 years old. The volunteers were divided into four groups and were given a 25mcg, 50mcg, 75mcg dose and placebo for each group. The vaccine proved to be safe and no emergency cases were reported.
Vietnam has the capacity to make six million doses of Nano Covax per month and the capacity can be raised to 100 million doses. It's likely that Vietnam will issue an emergency permit to produce the Nano Cova vaccine in 2021.