SARABURI, Thailand: Thailand is conducting tests on macaque monkeys as it races to produce a cheaper, alternative coronavirus vaccine it hopes will be ready by 2021, a top researcher said Monday.
More than 100 candidate vaccines are currently in various stages of development around the world, at least eight of which are in clinical trials with humans, according to the World Health Organization.
Oxford University researchers are considered the frontrunners in the race, starting clinical trials last month on a version based on a different virus that causes infections in chimpanzees.
Dr. Suchinda Malaivitjitnond, director of the National Primate Research Center of Thailand who oversaw Saturday’s vaccine injections to an initial group of 13 monkeys, said she hoped a “Made in Thailand” vaccine would be cheaper than a European or American drug.
The testing phase on the macaque monkeys came after trials on mice were successful, researchers said.
They are working in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania in the US using a new technology based on mRNA, a type of genetic material never before used to make a vaccine.
The process entails injecting a short sequence of viral genetic material to trigger an immune response by producing proteins acting against the virus.
At least two other companies — pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and US-based Moderna — are developing vaccines using the same technology, with the latter reporting positive preliminary results last week from clinical trials.
Thailand was the first country outside of China to detect an infection in mid-January but has so far reported just over 3,000 cases and 57 deaths.
If the tests on the macaques go well, human trials should start in October, said Dr. Kiat Ruxrungtham, chair of the Chula Vaccine Research Center at Chulalongkorn University.
“Our dream is that low- and middle-income countries should not stay a buyer for our whole lives.”
Thailand enters global race for vaccine with trials on monkeys
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Thailand enters global race for vaccine with trials on monkeys
- More than 100 candidate vaccines are currently in various stages of development around the world
- The testing phase on the macaque monkeys came after trials on mice were successful
UN envoy hopeful on Cyprus, says multi-party summit premature
- Holguin said she was hopeful after meeting with Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman
- “While encouraging, the dialogue process between both leaders is at its early beginning”
NICOSIA: The key UN envoy seeking to break a deadlock in Cyprus’s long-running division said she was cautiously optimistic about a breakthrough but that it would be premature to convene a multi-nation summit on the conflict.
In an interview with Cyprus’s Phileleftheros daily, envoy Maria Angela Holguin said she was hopeful after meeting with Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman on December 11. She said their discussion, which agreed to focus also on confidence-building, was “deep, sincere and very straightforward.”
“While encouraging, the dialogue process between both leaders is at its early beginning. More will need to be done in order to strengthen the nascent momentum and establish a real climate of trust that would allow the Secretary-General to convene a 5+1 informal meeting,” said Holguin, a former Colombian foreign minister.
A 5+1 meeting would be an informal summit of the two Cypriot communities with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and representatives of Britain, Turkiye and Greece to define how to move forward and break a seven-year stalemate in peace talks. The three NATO nations are guarantor powers of Cyprus under a treaty which granted the island independence from Britain in 1960.
A power-sharing administration of Cypriot Greeks and Turks crumbled in 1963. Turkiye invaded the north of the island in 1974 after a brief coup engineered by the military then ruling Greece. The island has been split on ethnic lines ever since.
Turkish Cypriots live in a breakaway state in the north, while Greek Cypriots in the south run an internationally recognized administration representing the whole island in the European Union.
