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MOSCOW: Russia plans to produce 30 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the country this year, and will manufacture 170 million more doses abroad, Reuters told the head of the country’s sovereign wealth fund.
The first human trial of the vaccine, a one-month check on 38 people, ended this week. The researchers concluded that it was safe and induced an immune reaction, the strength of this reaction is not yet clear.
A larger Phase III trial involving several thousand people is expected to begin in August, said Kirill Dmitriev, director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RRIF).
“We, who rely on existing results, will be approved in Russia in August and in some other countries in SeptembereArray … which probably makes it the first approved vaccine in the world,” he said in an interview.
More than one hundred vaccines imaginable are being developed to verify and prevent the pandemic. According to data from the World Health Organization, at least two of them are in the latter stages of human trials: one evolved through Sinopharm in China and the other through AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
Producers are also grappling with how to massively increase production to meet global needs.
GROUP IMMUNITY
Dmitriev said the Russian Phase 3 test will be conducted at home and in two Middle Eastern countries, and will begin after a Phase 2 100-person test is completed on August 3.
Russia in talks with Saudi Arabia about being a verification site and a production partner, he said at a separate press conference.
The Gamaleya Institute in Moscow, which developed the Russian candidate vaccine, produces doses for clinical trials, while personal pharmaceutical corporations Alium, which is part of the Sistema-R-Pharm conglomerate and is responsible for bottling.
Both are updating their lab settings so they can resume in the coming months, Dmitriev said.
“There is a widespread feeling that for so-called collective immunity in Russia, between 40 and 50 million more people will have to be vaccinated,” reuters told Reuters.
“So we think we’ll be fit and produce about 30 million (national doses) this year and then we’ll be able to finish vaccination next year.”
Russia has also concluded production agreements with five other countries and could produce up to 170 million doses this year, Dmitriev said.
He refused to say where or give main points of prices, however, he said that countries in Latin America, the Middle East and had expressed interest in loading the vaccine.
Russia has also reached an agreement with drug manufacturer AstraZeneca on its possible COVID-19 vaccine, called AZD1222. “We hope that one of the companies in our portfolio will also paint the Array … AstraZeneca vaccine in Russia,” Dmitriev said.
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