No grounds to postpone registration of Russian COVID-19 vaccine, expert says

By , K24 Digital
On Tue, 11 Aug, 2020 11:44 | < 1 min read
Russian vaccine
PHOTO | COURTESY
PHOTO | COURTESY

Russia has said that there is no need to postpone the registration of its COVID-19 vaccine that was developed by N.F Gamaleya Federal Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology.

Russian Health ministry's chief non-resident epidemiologist Nikolay Briko told TASS, the country's news agency on Tuesday, that the vaccine was not developed from scratch.

"This vaccine wasn’t developed from scratch, the Gamaleya Research Center had a serious, significant research base on vaccines. The technology of developing such a vaccine was perfected. So perhaps, the process was sped up due to the fact that the vaccine was not created from scratch. It is important that all stages (of vaccine research - TASS) are followed and that international requirements are adhered to," Briko said.

The country plans to manufacture several million doses of coronavirus vaccines per month by the beginning of next year, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said in an earlier interview with TASS.

About 26 coronavirus vaccine options are being developed at 17 research centres in Russia, according to the Russian Federal Servi e for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing.

The Gamaleya vaccine has already been tested on volunteers.