Covid-19 Thailand – Latest Updates (13th July, 2020)
Covid-19 Latest
Cases – 3,220 (+ 3) Recovered – 3,090 (+ 2) Hospitalised – 72 Died – 58
One of the first coronavirus vaccines developed outside rich nations
Thailand is starting the clinical stage for its own Covid-19 vaccine after both monkeys and mice generated satisfactory antibodies against the virus following injections, according to scientists in the study.
“We hope that the vaccine could generate neutralizing antibodies in humans seen in monkeys and mice,” Kiat Ruxrungtham, head researcher at Chulalongkorn University’s Center of Excellence in Vaccine Research and Development, said at a briefing on Sunday in Bangkok. If the trials are successful, Thailand could have its vaccine by the second half of 2021, he said.
The Thai study will begin its human trials as early as September and will be among the first done outside high-income countries. Globally, 160 vaccines are being studied for Covid-19, of which 21 are at the clinical evaluation stage, according to the World Health Organization.
Access to life-saving vaccines is a perennial issue in poorer countries. The economic turmoil of the pandemic has raised the stakes, and the worry is that countries will compete for scarce supplies, seeking to protect their own populations. The Oslo-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, WHO and the non-profit vaccine alliance Gavi are among those seeking equitable distribution.
Full Story: Fortune
New COVID-19 infections in Thailand are highly contagious G viral strain – Dr. Yong
The coronavirus strain, found among quarantined Thai returnees from abroad, is the mutated G strain, which has been spreading in the United States and Europe. It is not the S strain, which originally spread in Thailand, according to Dr. Yong Poovorawan of Chulalongkorn University, Thailand’s top virologist.
He said that, if there is a second wave of infections in Thailand, the G strain virus, or G614, will be dominant, because it is about ten times more contagious than the S strain, originally identified in Asia, but it does not appear to be more deadly.
Full Story: ThaiPBS
