Mexico begins Phase I COVID-19 vaccine trial

Mexico on Tuesday announced it is launching its first clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine and was hoping to have completed trials by the end of 2021.

María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, Director of Mexico's National Council of Science and Technology, said during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's morning press conference that preclinical tests have already been conducted on mice and on pigs.

She added that although scientists believe there is "a very solid basis" for an effective drug to be developed, the three phases of clinical studies in humans still need to be carried out.

"If everything goes as expected, we will have a Mexican vaccine by the end of this year," she said.

"Patria," as the experimental vaccine is called, uses a technology from New York City's Mount Sinai School of Medicine based on the stabilization of a coronavirus protein.

"These are vectors that have a great capacity to induce a strong immunogenic response, a very strong protective capacity," said Adolfo García Sastre, Director of the Institute for Global Health and Emerging Pathogens, at Mount Sinai.

Álvarez-Buylla said recruitment has already begun for the 100 or so healthy people between the ages of 18 and 55 from Mexico City who will participate in Phase I of the trials.

Mexico, a country of 126 million people, has applied more than 10 million doses of Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sinovac, and Spunik vaccines so far and expects to finish immunizing the elderly this month to start the vaccinations of half a million teachers in the regions least affected by the pandemic where the return to classroom instruction could begin soon.

More than 2.2 million Mexicans have been confirmed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began and the government has reported more than 320,000 deaths associated with the coronavirus, although only 209,702 deaths have been test-confirmed.