KUALA LUMPUR – The development of an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine locally, which has been ongoing since last November, is now at the animal testing stage.
Announcing this, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said the project being undertaken by the Institute for Medical Research Malaysia (IMR) in collaboration with Universiti Putra Malaysia is expected to conduct only human clinical trials in the next three months.
“The project is at the cloning stage, which includes the original virus and SARS-CoV-2,” he told a joint press conference with national immunisation programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin in Putrajaya today.
He said the process of developing efficacy tests on small and large animals is being implemented.
“Once animal and human clinical trials are completed, only then can the evaluation and registration of the mRNA vaccine commence.”
This comes after Dr Adham last week said IMR is in the process of developing two types of Covid-19 jabs: one based on ribonucleic acid (RNA) or messenger RNA (mRNA), and an inactivated vaccine.
In a Facebook post, he said this will increase the country’s vaccine capacity, as well as prepare it for future pandemics.
It will accelerate the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme and see the herd immunity target within reach by year-end, he said.
Medical experts previously urged the government to allow other coronavirus vaccines to be used in the national inoculation programme.
The National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency has so far approved those made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinovac and AstraZeneca.
The World Health Organisation has also given the green light to vaccines from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Sinopharm for emergency use.
According to the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, mRNA vaccines teach cells how to make a protein that triggers an immune response in the body, in turn producing antibodies and protecting a person from getting infected if the real virus enters their system.
Inactivated vaccines, on the other hand, use viruses that have been killed. – The Vibes, June 21, 2021
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