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Coronavirus pandemic

Updated at:

Russia studies vaccine platform for simultaneous protection against several viruses

We are speaking about the vaccine, which we started testing in pre-clinical studies on monkeys, the director of the Gamaleya Center, Alexander Gintsburgsaid

MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/. Specialists from Russia’s Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology launched pre-clinical studies of a vaccine platform for the simultaneous protection of several different viruses or of several strains of one virus, the director of the Gamaleya Center, Alexander Gintsburg, told TASS.

"We are speaking about the vaccine, which we started testing in pre-clinical studies on monkeys," he said. "The purpose of this technology is that it can protect simultaneously [a human] against different strains of one pathogen or even against several viruses circulating at the same time among the human population."

"An approach of combining various antigens of influenza and coronavirus as also possible," he said.

Gintsburg also said that the launched pre-clinical studies on the new vaccine platform have nothing to do with the anti-COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V, which was also developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology.

Earlier in the month, the Russian biopharmaceutical company Nanolek announced that it would start clinical trials of a combined COVID-19/influenza vaccine in a year and a half. According to the company, the combined vaccine would reduce the cumulative risks of simultaneous epidemics of influenza and COVID-19.

Russia has so far registered five COVID-19 vaccines. They are Sputnik V and Sputnik Light developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, EpiVacCorona and EpiVacCorona-N created by the Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology and CoviVac from the Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immune and Biological Products.

Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona, EpiVacCorona-N and CoviVac are two-dose viccines, while Sputnik Light is a single-dose vaccine.

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