The Israel Institute for Biological Research will begin human trials of its COVID-19 vaccine by October, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday. Defence Minister Benny Gantz had claimed that the country has an excellent vaccine candidate, which is waiting to clear the regulatory processes.

“There is an excellent vaccine, there are regulatory processes that the vaccine needs to go through based on the timetable that you (Alternate PM and Defence Minister Benny Gantz) mentioned. We will start safety and efficacy trials after the autumn holidays, but the product is in hand,” Prof Shapira, Director of IIBR, was quoted in a press statement as saying.

Israel’s Defence Minister Benny Gantz had met Prof Shapira to evaluate the progress made on the work to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. “All the initial experiments that have been successful  give a great deal of hope,” Gantz said after touring the institute.

In June, IIBR researchers reported they had successfully completed testing their vaccine candidate on hamsters.U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman had visited the institute’s bio-chemical defence laboratory last month. Israel has over 78,5000 COVID-19 infections with 569 deaths.