Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank, a volunteer in trials of the VLP vaccine, announced Friday that the jab’s Phase 2 trials had concluded and no serious side effects or other problems were found during the stage.
He said the last phase is likely to be launched next month.
The vaccine is one of its kind for Turkey where scientists are racing against time to develop inactive, adenovirus and other types of COVID-19 vaccines. It was the fourth vaccine to be included in a list of World Health Organization (WHO) for vaccine candidates on March 30.
A VLP vaccine works by mimicking the coronavirus, in a way that does not cause infection.
Currently, there are four VLP vaccine candidates in the world. The Turkish jab differs from the others by using the four structural proteins of the virus as a vaccine antigen, according to scientists.
The vaccine project is led by a professor couple, Mayda Gürsel from Middle East Technical University (METU) and her husband Ihsan Gürsel of Bilkent University. It is endorsed by the COVID-19 Turkey Platform, an initiative to develop drugs and vaccines against the coronavirus set up by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK).
Varank said in a written statement Friday that locally-made VLP vaccines had “great potential” and urged the public to sign up to volunteer for Phase 3 trials.
