MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. Asthmatics, diabetics and former cancer patients may have contraindications from a coronavirus vaccine, Head of the Department of General Virology of the Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immune and Biological Products of the Russian Academy of Sciences Georgy Ignatyev said at a press conference at TASS.
"Today, in the clinical trials protocol people with these diagnoses are listed as non-admission criteria, they cannot volunteer. According to the accepted practice in our country, the protocol criteria is then transferred to the vaccine manual. <...> In all likelihood, taking into account the first use of these vaccines, I don’t think that they’ll opt to use these vaccines on people with such diagnoses," he said in response to a question whether people with diabetes and asthma have contraindications to the vaccination.
Additionally, according to the scientist, a history of cancer will also be a contraindication to the inoculation.
The Center has developed its own whole-virion inactivated vaccine against the coronavirus. The preparation has already successfully passed pre-clinical trials and is currently undergoing clinical trials. Either artificially weakened viruses incapable of causing a disease or dead (inactivated) viruses are used in the whole-virion vaccines. Large-scale production of the vaccine against the coronavirus developed by the Chumakov Center may begin in February 2021.