Russia Starts Mass-Production of COVID Vaccine

Date: 15 August 2020 - 21:48

News ID: ۸۱۷۵۹

MOSCOW (Dispatches) – Russia has produced the first batch of its new vaccine for COVID-19, the Interfax news agency quoted the health ministry as saying on Saturday, hours after the ministry reported the start of manufacturing.
"The first batch of the novel coronavirus vaccine developed by the Gamaleya research institute has been produced,” the health ministry said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies.
The vaccine, the first for the coronavirus to go into production, will be rolled out by the end of this month, the ministry said.
The vaccine has been named "Sputnik V” in homage to the world’s first satellite launched by the Soviet Union. President Vladimir Putin has assured the public that it is safe, adding that one of his daughters had taken it as a volunteer and felt good afterwards.
It was developed by the Gamaleya research institute for epidemiology and microbiology in Moscow in coordination with the Russian defense ministry.
Gamaleya Institute said previously that Russia would be producing about 5 million doses a month by December-January, Interfax said.
The head of the institute, Alexander Gintsburg, told the TASS state news agency on Saturday that volunteers taking part in the final stage testing of the vaccine’s safety and efficacy would have two inoculations.
Asked about the vaccine’s safety, Gintsburg emphasized that the vaccine is based on a well-researched scientific platform dating back decades.
"The platform has been in development for 25 years for the purpose of gene therapy, but at the end of 2014 it was used to create drugs to fight the most rapidly changing viruses,” he said.
"The same platform was used to develop vaccines against Ebola, MERS [Middle East Respiratory Syndrome], and a number of other diseases. It allowed the creation of an Ebola vaccine within a fairly short period of 15 months, which later was highly assessed by the WHO.”
Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said this week that the vaccine would first be made available to medics and would later be available to all Russians on a voluntary basis.
With more than 917,000 confirmed infections, Russia’s coronavirus caseload is currently fourth in the world after the United States, Brazil and India.
Currently Russia has 92,000 people hospitalized with the virus and 2,900 in intensive care, according to the health ministry.
Vietnam’s health ministry has registered to purchase the Russian vaccine, its state television reported Friday.
More than 100 possible vaccines are being developed around the world to try to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. At least four are in the final Phase III human trials, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO).