MOSCOW, December 20. /TASS/. A third (booster) dose of the anti-COVID vaccine CoviVac is capable of considerably enhancing immunity against the novel coronavirus, the Chumakov Center’s director for development, Konstantin Chernov told TASS on Monday.

"A third (booster) dose of the vaccine dramatically enhances immunity. This is a unanimous conclusion we in Russia and researchers around the world have arrived at after a series of tests of how the vaccine works in relation to various strains, including Omicron. Specialists have examined the serums of patients who have had the booster injection to find out that the degree of protection may be as high as 95%," he said.

The Chumakov Center plans to conduct research into the effectiveness of three doses of the CoviVac vaccine administrated at three-week intervals between the injections, the center’s CEO, Aidar Ishmukhametov said on Monday.

The inactivated whole-virion vaccine CoviVac, developed at the Chumakov Center, obtained the Russian Health Ministry’s registration on February 19. Such vaccines contain either artificially weakened viruses that are unable to cause a disease or dead (inactivated) ones.