ST. PETERSBURG, October 19. /TASS/. Russia’s Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immune and Biological Products has launched clinical trials of its vaccine in St. Petersburg with the participation of 30 volunteers. The trials are set to end by late 2020, deputy chief of the "Eco-Safety" Research Center (where the trials are being held) Konstantin Zakharov told TASS.

On October 6, clinical trials of a whole-virion inactivated vaccine developed by the Chumakov Center began in Novosibirsk. Whole-virion vaccines are based on artificially weakened viruses unable to cause a disease or "dead" viruses, also known as inactivated viruses.

"So far, there are 30 people at our clinic - they are healthy volunteers. We started to vaccinate them at 9 am; all thirty of them received a vaccine shot. The reaction of all volunteers to the vaccine is good," the expert said.

Volunteers aged 18 to 45 are taking part in the research. They had undergone screening tests and medical examination prior to vaccination. All volunteers tested negative for COVID-19 and had no antibodies to the virus before the trials.

"The volunteers will be hospitalized for 16 days. We will use the vaccine twice - today and in 14 days. In 16 days, they will be discharged from hospitals. They will come back for appointments on day 28 and 56. The clinical trials will be over by the end of the year," Zakharov explained.

On August 11, Russia became the first country to register a coronavirus vaccine, which was named "Sputnik V." Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko informed that the vaccine created by the N. F. Gamaleya Federal Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology had shown its effectiveness and safety on the outcomes of clinical trials. It was created on a platform that had been used for the development of a number of other vaccines. On August 15, the Russian Health Ministry announced the launch of the vaccine production. The first batch of the vaccine was sent to Russian regions on September 12.

Another Russian COVID-19 vaccine, EpiVacCorona vaccine developed by the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology "Vector," was registered on October 14, with post-registration trials set to begin shortly.