Moscow: Amid the gloomy cloud of coronavirus outbreak, caused many lives and infected almost 20 Million people, reports from Russia emerged as silver lining which suggested that the nation will soon launch the World’s first COVID19 vaccine.
Where many countries are under 2nd phase of human clinical trial, Russia has been pushing extensively for a Covid-19 vaccine for quite some time now.
Following that, the country will register its first vaccine against the coronavirus on 12 August, Deputy Health Minister Oleg Gridnev said on Friday, according to a report.
The vaccine has been developed jointly by the Gamaleya Research Institute and the Russian Defence Ministry.
“The vaccine developed by the Gamaleya centre will be registered on August 12. At the moment, the last, third, stage is underway. The trials are extremely important. We have to understand that the vaccine must be safe. Medical professionals and senior citizens will be the first to get vaccinated,” Gridnev told reporters at the opening of a cancer centre building in the city of Ufa, according to Sputnik News.
According to the minister, the effectiveness of the vaccine will be judged when the population immunity has formed.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization on Tuesday urged Russia to follow the established guidelines for producing safe and effective vaccines after Moscow announced plans to start swiftly producing COVID-19 vaccines.
Apart from Russia, the countries which are racing to launch the vaccine for this pandemic virus are:
Moderna (US): Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine is one of the top contender.The company announced last week that it has started phase 3 clinical trials in the United States.
Pfizer (US): Albeit its four COVID-19 vaccine candidates are still in early-stage human tribulations, two of them have been expeditious-tracked by the FDA.
Novavax will start the Phase 3 clinical trial of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate NVX-CoV2373 next month. The first phase of the trial showed it generated antibodies to fight the coronavirus disease, the company said in a release.
Marco Cavaleri, the EU’s top vaccine official, told Bloomberg in July that the European Union could approve a vaccine for COVID-19 after the terminus of 2020.
Oxford University/AstraZeneca (UK): It is currently testing its vaccine on 1 lakh human volunteers in more than two countries.
China’s two leading companies include SinoVac and SinoPharm also showing great results with increasing their capacity and doubling the testing speed.
India’s leading vaccine companies Bharat Biotech International Ltd and Zydus Cadila Ltd have completed phase I of clinical trials for their respective vaccine candidates against covid-19.