Russia To Register World’s First COVID-19 Vaccine Next Week
Russia has been pushing thoroughly for a COVID-19 vaccine for quite some time now, amidst the rising novel coronavirus cases and fatalities around the world.
Oleg Gridnev, Deputy Health Minister said that Russia will register its first coronavirus vaccine on 12 August 2020.
The Russian Defence Ministry and Gamaleya Research Institute have jointly developed the vaccine.
Gridnev said that presently, the last, 3rd stage of clinical trials are ongoing. These clinical trials are incredibly essential. The safety of the vaccine has to be understood. The vaccine will be initially given to medical professionals and seniors citizens.
The performance of the vaccine will certainly be evaluated when the population immunity has developed, according to the minister.
The Russian Defence Ministry said that, in a previous report, the final examination of volunteers testing the COVID-19 vaccine (developed by Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology) revealed that all volunteers had developed immunity against COVID-19.
The clinical trials of the vaccine consisting of 38 volunteers began on June 18. All 38 individuals developed immunity against the disease. On July 15, and July 20, the first and the second group respectively was discharged after
the clinical trials.In addition to this, volunteers who took part in the second COVID-19 vaccine trial developed by Vektor State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology have not developed any kind of adverse effects and are in good health.
On the other hand, the World Health Organization urged Russia to comply with the developed guidelines for producing risk-free and reliable vaccines after Moscow revealed plans to begin producing vaccines against COVID-19.
Prior to being rolled out, all vaccine candidates need to go through the complete stages of screening, said WHO.
Christian Lindmeier, WHO spokesman said that there are guidelines and established methods, any vaccine (or medicine) for this purpose should be, should go through all the various trials and tests before being licensed.
No scientific data from the initial clinical trials have been published by Russia yet. The Gamaleya’s vaccine is still listed in WHO’s list of vaccine candidates in human testing as in Phase 1 trials.
8,82,347 cases have been reported in Russia till now, 5,241 COVID-19 cases have been reported in the past 24 hours, and the percentage of daily increase is 0.6%.
Author: Sruthi S
