Thailand on Monday announced that an experimental vaccine against the novel coronavirus developed by a Thai research team has shown promising results in monkeys, indicating the jab could enter trials as soon as this October. According to Thailand’s Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, the country’s COVID-19 vaccine trial has made progress after macaque monkeys which were given the first doses of the jab showed satisfactory immune response. 

Researchers at the National Primate Research Center in Thailand’s central province of Saraburi, administered the doses of the mRNA candidate vaccine to the monkeys on May 23, said Suvit Maesincee, Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovations Minister. He said all the monkeys remained in good health and have developed satisfactory immune responses to the virus.

The minister added the same monkeys were injected with the second dose of the vaccine again on Monday as the country looks for another positive response to enable human trials as early as October.

“So if the second doses produce good results, the next step would be human trials, in either October or November, to prove safety and efficacy,” he said, reported Xinhua.

The minister said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has stressed the importance of producing homegrown COVID-19 vaccines by cooperating with partner countries such as China and the United States to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier, Thailand had said that it expects to have a coronavirus vaccine by next year. The Thai vaccine is one of at least 120 candidates being developed globally as scientists across the world hunt for treatments and vaccines to combat COVID-19, which has so far killed at least 469,060 people in the world.

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