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Vaccine producer says too early to tout CoviVac's efficacy

According to Chumakov Center Director General Aidar Ishmukhametov, CoviVac could be effective against all current coronavirus variants

ST. PETERSBURG, June 2. /TASS/. It is still very early to talk about the effectiveness of the CoviVac whole-virion vaccine as that will become clear only after all the trial phases are completed, Chumakov Center Director General Aidar Ishmukhametov told TASS on Wednesday.

"Until the vaccine developed by our specialists passes the third phase of trials, it is still too early to speak about the level of its efficacy. The figures for CoviVac’s efficacy, which were announced today, are merely evaluative judgements. According to preliminary results of the Phase Two trials, about 80% of the volunteers developed antibodies," he said on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

According to the scientist, CoviVac could be effective against all current coronavirus variants.

"We are preparing scientific publications in leading scientific journals about our vaccine where data on the jab’s efficacy could be presented. We hope that the articles will appear before this autumn," Ishmukhametov said.

The inactivated whole-virion CoviVac vaccine developed by the Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immune-and-Biological Products of Russian Academy of Sciences (known as the Chumakov Center) was registered with the Russian Health Ministry on February 19. Whole-virion vaccines are based either on artificially weakened viruses incapable of causing a disease or killed (inactivated) viruses.

About SPIEF

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) is being held on June 2-5. The forum, organized by the Roscongress Foundation, is titled ‘Together Again — Economy of a New Reality’. It embraces the SME Forum, the Healthy Life and Drug Security Forums along with the SPIEF Junior sessions. SPIEF-2021 is held in person in strict accordance with health and safety measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. TASS is the official information partner and the photo hosting agency of SPIEF-2021.