Moscow: A top Russian minister has claimed that a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the country’s Defence Ministry has completed Phase 2 trials and it was ready for use for domestic inoculation.
In an interview with Argumenty i Fakty newspaper published on Tuesday, Russia’s First Deputy Defence Minister Ruslan Tsalikov said a second group of volunteers ended phase 2 trials Monday, with everyone developing immunity from coronavirus and feeling fine.
The minister, however, didn’t say when large-scale phase 3 trials would take place or when production of the vaccine may begin, according to a report by news agency Bloomberg.
The Russian Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tests of the vaccine are continuing, the Interfax news service reported, citing the Healt
h Ministry in response to the statement.
“They’re all getting ahead of themselves,” said Sergei Netesov, a former executive at Vector, a state-run virology centre in Novosibirsk that is also working on an inoculation. “The third phase has not started yet, or even been announced. The reason they’re in such a rush is completely incomprehensible,” he added.
The Russian army is developing the vaccine with the state-run Gamaleya Institute in Moscow and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).
The phase 3 trials, which will include thousands of people in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are scheduled to begin on August 3 and distribution of the vaccine could start as early as September, RDIF’s head Kirill Dmitriev had said last week.
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