10/25/2020 4:04 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 10/25/2020 4:04 PM
The Israel Institute for Biological Research
obtained authorization
to begin clinical trials in humans of the vaccine it is developing against the coronavirus on November 1.
"Just two months ago I received the first vial of the vaccine.
Today we already have 25,000 doses
and we are beginning the next phase," celebrated Benny Gantz, the head of Defense, the ministry that oversees the institute (IIBR, for its acronym in English) .
The Ministry of Health and the so-called Helsinki Committee, an Israeli body of experts that approves experiments on humans, authorized the initiation of
"the most crucial phase"
of the development of the Israeli coronavirus vaccine.
Two participants will receive the vaccine next Sunday, November 1 and, if the result is successful, it will be administered to eighty volunteers
between 18 and 55 years old.
The volunteers will be supervised during the first hours at Sheba Hospitals in Tel Aviv and Hadassah Hospitals in Jerusalem, after which they will be discharged and undergo
medical monitoring for three weeks.
"Scientists will check
for possible side effects
and monitor whether volunteers develop antibodies against the virus," the institute explained in a statement.
During a second stage, scheduled for December,
the trials will be expanded to 960 volunteers
of legal age in various medical centers throughout the country, with the aim of ensuring "safety precautions, the dose and the effectiveness of the vaccine."
In the third and final stage,
scheduled for the months of April and May
2021, 30,000 volunteers will receive the vaccine and, if effective, it will be approved for mass use.
"I believe in the abilities of our scientists
and I am confident that we can produce a safe and effective vaccine. The trade name is 'BriLife'," said IIBR director Shmuel Shapira.
The name of the vaccine responds to a set of acronyms between the term "health" in Hebrew (briut), the abbreviation of Israel (il) and the English word "life", life.
The ultimate goal of the Institute
is to produce 15 million vaccines
for both Israeli citizens and "close neighbors" in the region.
The vaccine developed by the IIBR is based on an existing virus (VSV, vesicular stomatitis virus) and has been successfully tested in animals, in which it developed an effective immune response in both small animals (mice, hamsters and rabbits) as well as in large (pigs).
Source: EFE
PB
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