The announcement may seem late, but Argentina already has its vaccine against COVID-19, still in the development stage. And despite the fact that the pandemic is no longer the danger it was before, Arvac Cecilia Grierson will play a key role: to be able to respond with a national compound to a disease that will continue to circulate among the population.
The National Administration of Medicines, Food and Medical Technology (Anmat) authorized the start of phase II and III studies to evaluate the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the national vaccine, developed by the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet ), the National University of San Martín (Unsam) and the “Pablo Cassará” Laboratory.
The evaluations will be carried out on volunteers 18 years of age or older, who are healthy and who have received two doses of the primary schedule of the vaccine against COVID-19, to whom the booster schedule of the vaccine under study will be applied. The interdose periods will be those recommended by the National Ministry of Health in the published vaccination schedules.
The national Ministry of Health reported that from the partial results of Phase I, preliminary safety information was obtained that demonstrated that the vaccine is safe and effective: a booster dose increases neutralizing antibodies against the virus variants up to 30 times. Omicron and Gamma.
Since last February 6, more than 200 volunteers have already received the vaccine in the first stage of phases 2 and 3. In a second stage, it will be tested on more than 1,800 volunteers.
Writing / NTV
