Egypt’s Minister of Health Hala Zayed announced, on Saturday, the beginning of the third phase of clinical trials on two vaccines for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
Zayed said the trials, which are being run in cooperation with the Chinese government and the UAE’s G42 Healthcare Company, is part of an integrated package, including research on potential vaccines and manufacturing.
The minister said that Egypt is keen on participating in clinical trials to reach an effective vaccine against the coronavirus. On the back of this, the Ministry of Health formed a national committee for monitoring clinical trials.
Meanwhile, Egypt President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi followed up on the state’s efforts in combating COVID-19 during a meeting with his health advisor Mohamed Awad Taj El-Din.
Al-Sisi directed concerned state bodies to draw lessons from the country’s experience in combating the virus since its global outbreak, in anticipation of potential second wave.
“These experiments are called ‘For Humanity’, and are taking place in four Arab countries, namely Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, and the UAE,” Minister Zayed said. “The experiments target 45,000 people worldwide, and they have been conducted on 35,000 people so far.”
Egypt is expected to participate in these trials by providing 6,000 volunteers. Participants will receive two doses of vaccination 21 days apart, following which they will be followed up for a full year.
According to a Ministry of Health statement, the vaccine trial has already gone through the pre-clinical phase ofanimal testing in laboratories. This was followed by the first phase of trials on human subjects to test for safety, vaccine effectiveness, and the standard dose needed to produce antibodies at an appropriate level.
The second phase was conducted on a larger number of volunteers, which established the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine. The third phase is for testing the vaccine on a larger group of people from different countries, including Egypt.
The Ministry of Health launched a website, on Sunday, for volunteers wishing to register for participation in the clinical trials.
