Russia developing another 24 potential Covid-19 vaccines, alongside two already registered
MOSCOW. Dec 8 (Interfax) - Apart from the two coronavirus vaccines that have already been registered, Russia is developing another 24 potential Covid-19 vaccines, the director of the Russian Health Ministry's Department of Emergency Medical Care and Health Risk Management, Inna Kulikova, said at the Medicine and Quality 2020 conference on Tuesday.
"The development of the world's first ever Covid-19 vaccine became a milestone in the fight against the pandemic. The Health Ministry of the Russian Federation registered the Gam-Covid-Vac vaccine on August 11, 2020, and EpiVacCorona [second vaccine] two months later. At the moment, Russian national research centers and pharmaceutical companies are developing another 24 potential vaccines,' Kulikova said.
Head of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor) Anna Popova said earlier that Russia is developing at least ten coronavirus vaccines along with the already known Sputnik V, developed by the Health Ministry's Gamaleya Research Center, EpiVacCorona, developed by Rospotrebnadzor's Vector State Research Center, and the vaccine developed by the Russian Academy of Sciences' Chumakov Research Center. Thus, the Vector Center is working on another three candidate vaccines, among them a combined flu-coronavirus vaccine, a measles virus-based vaccine, and a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus-based vaccine.
The Vector press service said earlier that it has no immediate plans to conduct clinical trials of these vaccines on humans, because the center's priority is to put the registered vaccine EpiVacCorona into public circulation.
The first coronavirus vaccine registered by Russia is the Gamaleya Center's vaccine, known as Sputnik V. This vaccine has already completed all stages of its trials and has entered public circulation. The mass vaccination campaign using the Sputnik V vaccine started in Moscow on December 5. Healthcare workers, teachers, social aid workers, law enforcement personnel, and Armed Forces servicemen are being vaccinated first of all.
Russia has received applications for 1.2 billion doses of this vaccine from approximately 50 countries.
Russia's second Covid-19 vaccine - EpiVacCorona, developed by Rospotrebnadzor's Vector Center - was registered on October 14. Its post-registration trials on volunteers aged over 60 years old and volunteers aged 18 and above began in November. Fifty thousand doses of this vaccine will be produced before the end of the year. Of them, 5,000 will be used in trials, while the rest will enter public circulation. The mass production of this vaccine is expected to start in early 2021.
The Chumakov Center has developed a whole-virion Covid-19 vaccine. The ongoing stage of this vaccine's clinical trials involving 300 volunteers will continue until the end of December. The vaccine will be registered upon completion of the trials. The Chumakov Center also said that it is ready to manufacture up to ten million doses of the vaccine a year.