Iran ready for human trial of homegrown coronavirus vaccine
Iran will start Phase 1 human trial of its COVID-19 vaccine this week and over 10,000 volunteers have already signed up for it, according to officials.
The volunteers enrolling for the human trial, according to guidelines issued by the government, should be aged between 18 and 50 and in sound health condition.
In the first stage, 56 volunteers would be chosen to receive two shots given two weeks apart, the results of which would be evaluated four weeks later to check the vaccine's immunity response.
More than 1 million people in Iran have so far contracted the virus and over 54,000 have died from it. The new cases and deaths have, however, dropped in recent weeks following a lockdown.
According to Health Ministry officials, the process to produce the vaccine took at least 10 months with the involvement of many noted knowledge-based companies in Iran.
The three phases of the trial, industry experts told Anadolu Agency, are likely to be completed by June 2021, although mass production could begin before the trials are over.
The human trial of the vaccine comes after it was tested on rabbits and guinea pigs, followed by monkeys, based on the standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO), officials said.
The necessity to produce a homegrown vaccine has been driven by a lack of accessibility to vaccines produced abroad due to U.S. sanctions and Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklisting.
(c) Daily Sabah
News.Az
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