Álvarez-Buylla pointed out that they have already begun to recruit the hundred volunteers who will participate in phase I of the trials, healthy people between 18 and 55 years of age from Mexico City.
Mexico announced on Tuesday the start of human clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine and the government said it was confident the drug could be ready by the end of 2021.
María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, general director of the National Council of Science and Technology, explained during the morning press conference of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that preclinical tests have already been done in mice, both intranasally and intramuscularly, and with pigs, which have a human-like immune system.
He noted that although the three phases of clinical studies in people are still ahead, scientists believe that there is “a very solid basis” for an effective drug to be achieved.
“If everything goes as expected, we would have a Mexican vaccine at the end of this year,” he predicted.
Cuba is the only nation in Latin America with its own vaccine in phase III of clinical trials , the last stage, and, according to the island’s authorities, it could be ready for general application between May and July. Brazil is the other country in the region that develops its own drug, although it does not yet have authorization for the first phase of trials.
“Homeland”, as the experimental vaccine was baptized, “uses a production method very similar or identical to that of other vaccines that are being used frequently in the world”, which does not give rise to adverse effects and has a high protection, said, for his part, in a video released during the conference by Adolfo García Sastre, director of the Institute for Global Health and Emerging Pathogens, Mount Sinai, New York. García Sastre did not specify which vaccines he was referring to.
“Homeland” uses a technology from the Mount Sinai medical school based on the stabilization of a coronavirus protein, according to the National Council of Science and Technology in a statement.
López Obrador stressed that having a Mexican vaccine will mean that Mexico is a producer country and does not have to depend on whether or not other states allow the drug to be exported. Also, that you can count on an effective and cheaper vaccine, he added.
Álvarez-Buylla pointed out that they have already begun to recruit the hundred volunteers who will participate in phase I of the trials, healthy people between 18 and 55 years of age from Mexico City.
So far, the Mexican government has invested 150 million pesos (about 7.5 million dollars) in this project and will develop the vaccine in collaboration with the Avimex laboratory.
Mexico, a country of 126 million inhabitants, has so far applied more than 10 million doses of vaccines from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sinovac and Spunik V and is confident of finishing immunizing older adults this month to start with half a million of teachers from the regions least affected by the pandemic and where a return to face-to-face classes could soon be allowed.
More than 2.2 million Mexicans have been confirmed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began and the government has registered more than 320,000 deaths associated with the coronavirus, although only 209,702 deaths have been confirmed with a test.