Sign up here for our coronavirus newsletter on what you want to know and subscribe to our Covid-19 podcast for the latest news and analysis.
Russia has begun production of a momentary Covid-19 vaccine that has finished testing as the Kremlin rushes to expand a shield opposed to the pandemic.
Production of the vaccine, developed through the former biological weapons laboratory of the Vector State Virology and Biotechnology Centre in Novosibirsk, will accumulate until the end of the year, Anna Popova, director of Russia’s public control body, said at a convention on Tuesday.
President Vladimir Putin announced the approval of the Vector vaccine earlier this month, following a similar trajectory of the Sputnik V inoculation in August, which he said was the first to be registered in the world. Both have been tested on a limited number of other people before. receive an interim registration that will allow widespread use as they go through Phase 3 trials to demonstrate their protection and effectiveness.
The government expects experimental vaccines to stop the tide of the pandemic while minimizing the economic benefits of confinement. Russia, with the fourth number of Covid-19 cases in the world, is reluctant to reinstate restrictions to fight a momentary wave even when the number of new infections and deaths is at a record level.
However, scientists and pharmaceutical corporations that need additional testing to obtain protection and efficacy before these vaccines are qualified for use in the US. U. S. , Accelerated progression requires at least two months of monitoring knowledge of Phase 3 trials before a developer can apply for emergency use authorization.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund, which is one of the developers of Sputnik V, said Tuesday that it had submitted an application to the World Health Organization for an emergency use list and preselection of the vaccine. protection and quality.
Unlike Sputnik V, which uses an adenovirus to stimulate the immune formula opposite Covid-19, the Vector vaccine is an aggregate of short chains of amino acids, peptides, that induce an immune response.
Although Russia is saving money to allow for mass use, expanding vaccine production is creating difficult. When the Vector vaccine was registered on 14 October, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said the first 60,000 doses would soon occur.
Kirill Dmitriev, director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said in July that Russia aims to produce 30 million doses by 2020. This target rated it “impossible” this month through Industry Minister Denis Manturov, who said up to 2. 3 million doses would be made.
“We are having production and scaling volumes,” said Alexey Repik, owner of R-Pharm, a Russian pharmaceutical company that will produce Sputnik V.
This week, Russian pharmaceutical company Generium announced that it had produced 90,000 doses of Sputnik V and would increase its production to one hundred million doses according to the year, but did not give a schedule, making it the third company to effectively produce the vaccine through volume, after its development according to the Gamaleya Institute in Moscow , and Vladimir Evtushenkov’s Binnofarm.
Sputnik V is complex to manufacture because gigantic amounts are required and the vaccine uses other strains of adenovirus in each of its two injections. It must also be kept frozen before use, which adds to logistical challenges.
“The disorders occurred at the level of the transfer of production from the Gamaleya Institute to other sites,” said Dmitry Kulish, a biologist and professor at Skoltech University in Moscow who had worked in the Russian pharmaceutical sector. The domestic industry also depends on foreign teams,” he said.
The first doses of vaccines will be given to frontline workers. Moscow plans to start mass vaccinations until December or January, Mayor Sergei Sobianin wrote on his blog this month.
Russia could sign a third vaccine, developed through moscow’s Chumakov Federal Science Centre, until December. Each vaccine will have its own target audience, according to Popova.
“Today we have the ability to produce a significant amount of vaccines that weigh on a single production site,” Popova said, RIA Novosti reported.