Indonesia takes part in late-stage China vaccine trial

More people in Indonesia rolled up ir sleeves Friday to test a potential coronavirus vaccine developed by a Chinese company. Indonesian government anunced partnership between state-owned enterprise Bio Farma and Chinese company Sivac BioTech in early July. As part of deal, Indonesia recruited 1,620 volunteers for trial. first 20 were injected with candidate vaccine in Bandung, West Java province, on Tuesday, and more followed suit.

“We hope that this third clinical trial will be completed in six months. We hope that in January we can produce it and at same time, if production is rey, vaccinate all people in country,” President Joko Widodo said on Tuesday.

After passing a medical and PCR test to confirm ir health, volunteers were given a first dose of experimental vaccine or a placebo, n a second dose 14 days later.

“Fifty percent of volunteers will be injected by vaccine and or 50% will be injected with placebo. We will see comparison from those who are injected with vaccine and those who got placebo in seven months,” clinical trial research leer Kusnandi Rusmil told Associated Press by phone.

Bio Farma currently has a production capability of 100 million vaccine doses. company is building a new facility, expected to be completed in December, that will increase capacity to 250 million doses. Use of vaccine will be prioritized for Indonesia, world’s fourth most populated country, Bio Farma CEO Honesti Basyir said.

Called CoronaVac, potential vaccine uses an inactivated pathogen, meaning virus is grown in a lab and n deactivated or killed. In June company anunced that severe verse side effects h resulted from phase 1 and 2 trials conducted in volunteers in China. company is also planning clinical trials with thousands of volunteers in India, Brazil and Banglesh.

Under rmal circumstances, it takes years for a vaccine to be developed. But with many experts believing that a vaccine is best hope against virus, clinical trials and development have been rapidly accelerated since Jan. 10, when China shared virus’ genetic sequence. trial comes at a time when Indonesia continues to have one of highest confirmed caselos in region, with actual number of cases suspected to be much higher. As of Thursday, Indonesia h 132,816 confirmed cases with 5,968 deaths.