MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s first potential COVID-19 vaccine will obtain local regulatory approval in the first half of August and be administered to front-line health workers soon after, a development source close to the matter told Reuters.
FILE PHOTO: The Executive President of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, attends a session of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia, June 7, 2019. REUTERS / Maxim Shemetov
A state research center in Moscow, the Gamaleya Institute, completed the first human trials of the adenovirus-based vaccine this month and hopes to start large-scale trials in August.
The vaccine will gain regulatory approval from authorities in Russia as that large-scale trial continues, the source said, highlighting Moscow’s determination to be the first country in the world to approve a vaccine.
The speed with which Russia is moving to implement the vaccine has led some Western media to question whether Moscow is putting national prestige ahead of solid science and security.
“The (regulatory) approval will be in the first two weeks of August,” said the development source. “August 10 is the expected date, but it will definitely be before August 15. All the (test) results so far are very positive.”
The source added that Russian health workers treating patients with COVID-19 will have the opportunity to volunteer to get vaccinated shortly after the vaccine receives regulatory approval.
Separately, the Russian news agency Interfax quoted “an informed source” as saying the vaccine would be registered from August 10-12 and would be administered from August 15 onwards.
The press service of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which coordinates and funds Russia’s vaccine development efforts, declined to comment, but its boss, Kirill Dmitriev, has denied that Russia’s vaccine push compromised the security.
“The Ministry of Health in Russia is following all the necessary strict procedures. No corners are cut, “Dmitriev said Tuesday.
Dmitriev compared what he said was Russia’s success in developing a vaccine with the 1957 launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1, the world’s first satellite.
“Just as Sputnik was the result of very talented Russian scientists … our vaccine research is based on the work of great Russian scientists,” he said.
Britain’s National Cyber Security Center said this month that Russian state-backed hackers were trying to steal the COVID-19 vaccine and treatment research from academic and pharmaceutical institutions around the world. The allegations have been denied by Moscow.
More than 100 possible vaccines are being developed worldwide to try to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. At least four are in final phase III trials in humans, according to WHO data, including three conducted in China and one in Britain.
Report by Andrew Osborn; Editing by David Goodman
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