Phase 3 clinical trials of CoviVac Covid-19 vaccine to start in June - developer
MOSCOW. May 18 (Interfax) - The phase 3 clinical trials of the Covid-19 vaccine CoviVac will start in June and will take one year, and the need for three-dose vaccination for the elderly will be analyzed simultaneously, Aidar Ishmukhametov, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Chumakov Center, the vaccine's developer, told Interfax on Tuesday.
"The phase 3 clinical trials will begin in June and will continue for a year," Ishmukhametov said.
"As part of the phase 3 clinical trials, we will single out a separate group of volunteers over 60 years of age and will analyze the need for three-dose vaccination in order to ensure the appropriate level of protection for people with weakened immune responses," he said.
"First and foremost, it [three-dose vaccination] may be recommended for the elderly and people with chronic illnesses," he said.
The phase 3 trials will also help determine "as accurate and objective as possible methods of assessing a person's protection [after vaccination with CoviVac] in general rather than simply [measuring] some antibody levels," Ishmukhametov said.