MOSCOW, October 4. /TASS/. The anti-coronavirus vaccine, developed by Russia’s Chumakov Center can be used immediately after it successfully passes all clinical trials, scheduled for completion in November, the center’s Director General Ildar Ishmukhametov has told TASS.
"Certainly, we will be able to start using it immediately after completing all clinical trials. We plan to complete them in November," he said.
President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Sergeyev told TASS in late September that the Chumakov Center’s vaccine rests on the century-long global and domestic experience of work with whole-virion vaccines and may have a serious export potential. "It implies work with the virus causing a disease, but this virus id dead, harmless, inactive. I must say that most of the world nations typically use such whole-virion vaccines against various diseases. Such viruses are not hazardous but vaccines on their basis prompt good immune response," he added.
According to the Russian scientist, the Chumakov Center has a modern production facility with the capacity to produce up to ten million doses of various vaccines.
The Russian health ministry has issued a permit for clinical trials of the Chumakov Center’s vaccine and the tests will soon begin in Kirov, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk and will involve more than 3,000 volunteers. According to the Center’s director general, Aidar Ishmukhametov, clinical tests are scheduled to be completed in November.
The Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immune and Biological Products was created on the basis of the Institute of Poliomyelitis and Virus Encephalitis of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences. Academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences Mikhail Chumakov was the Institute’s founder and first director (until 1972).
Today the Chumakov Center is a leading world research organization in the sphere of medical virology.