Russia plans to approve the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine in less than two weeks, despite concerns about its safety and efficacy at the breakneck pace destined to beat the rest of the world, according to a report.
Russian authorities told CNN they expect the vaccine, created by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute, to be ready for prime time on or before August 10 for public use, and that health workers will release it. get first.
“This is a Sputnik moment,” Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, which funds the country’s vaccine research, told CNN in reference to the 1957 launch of the world’s first satellite by the Soviet Union.
“The Americans were shocked when they heard Sputnik’s beeps. It is the same with this vaccine. Russia will have come first, “he told the network.
But Russia has not released any scientific data on the project, and CNN reported that it was unable to verify its safety or effectiveness. Critics also warn that the Kremlin has been pushing to portray the country as a world scientific power.
Meanwhile, a Russian state virology institute has begun human trials of the country’s second potential vaccine, injecting the first of five volunteers with a dose earlier this week, according to Reuters, which it quoted the RIA news agency as saying.
The volunteer was feeling fine, the agency reported.
The next volunteer at the Siberia Vector Virology Institute trial is scheduled to receive an injection on Thursday, RIA said, citing consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor.
The institute, overseen by Rospotrebnadzor, is testing a peptide vaccine using a platform first developed for Ebola, according to a government registry of all clinical trials in the country.
The test is expected to increase to 100 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 60, according to the registry. Vector is working on six possible coronavirus vaccines, according to records from the World Health Organization, Reuters reported.
More than 100 possible coronavirus vaccines are being developed worldwide. At least four are in final phase III trials in humans, according to WHO data, including three conducted in China and one in Britain.
In the US, the final test of the world’s largest COVID-19 vaccine study was launched Monday, with the first of 30,000 US participants beginning to test the experimental immunization developed by the National Institutes of Health and Modern Inc.
In August, the final study of a vaccine from the University of Oxford in the UK will begin. There are also plans to evaluate candidates for Johnson & Johnson and Novavax in September and October, respectively.
Pfizer Inc. plans to conduct its own study of 30,000 people over the summer.
While some vaccines are in the third phase of trials worldwide, the Russian Gamaleya Institute vaccine has not yet completed its second phase, according to CNN.
The researchers plan to complete that phase by August 3 and then carry out the third phase along with vaccination of medical workers, the network reported.
Russian developers said the vaccine has developed rapidly because it is a modified version of one that is already used to fight other diseases.
“Our scientists focused not on being the first but on protecting people,” Dmitriev told CNN.
Authorities said the scientific data will be available for peer review and publication in early August.
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