China's Convidecia coronavirus vaccine highly efficacious, safe, may be approved in Russia - Petrovax head
MOSCOW. Aug 2 (Interfax) - The third stage of clinical trials has demonstrated the high efficacy of China's Convidecia coronavirus vaccine, and the vaccine may be approved in Russia, Mikhail Tsyferov, president of the Petrovax company that is implementing the joint Russian-Chinese project, said.
Petrovax established a partnership with China's Cansino Biologics Inc. at the beginning of 2020, Tsyferov said. "We have held two vaccine clinical studies of the third stage in Russia, and as of this moment, Convidecia remains the only foreign vaccine with such status in our country. Russian specialists have confirmed the high safety and efficacy of the vaccine. We are now looking forward to the vaccine's approval in Russia," the corporate press service quoted Tsyferov as saying.
"Convidecia has been approved in Kyrgyzstan with support from the Russian company, and its approval in Kazakhstan is pending," he said.
"On the whole, we are ready to begin vaccine supply to those countries as early as fall," Tsyferov said.
"A fourth production line has been built at the enterprise in order to guarantee a monthly output of 10 million doses of vaccine," he said.
The first stage of the Phase III local clinical studies of the Ad5-nCov candidate vaccine began in Russia in August 2020, and the vaccination of volunteers began at eight institutions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl, and Yekaterinburg in September.
It emerged in December that the Russian Health Ministry had given permission to hold the third international phase of the clinical studies of the Ad5-nCov vaccine made by CanSino Biologics (CanSinoBIO) in Russia.
