The first vaccine against COVID-19 was registered

The vaccine has received a registration certificate from the Russian Ministry of Health on August 11 and under emergency rules adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic can be used to vaccinate the population in Russia. Mass production of the vaccine is expected to start in September 2020.

vaccine against COVID-19, COVID-19, coronavirus, Gamaleya Center
The vaccine was created by Gamaleya Center. After the start of the COVID-19 pandemic Russian researchers extracted a fragment of genetic material from novel coronavirus SARS-COV-2, which codes information about the structure of the spike S-protein, which forms the virus'"crown" and is responsible for connection with human cells. They inserted it into a familiar adenovirus vector for delivery into a human cell creating the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine.

In order to ensure lasting immunity Russian scientists came up with a breakthrough idea to use two different types of adenovirus vectors (rAd26 and rAd5) for the first and second vaccination, boosting the effect of the vaccine.

Before the start, of clinical trials the vaccine had gone through all stages of pre-clinical trials with experiments on different types of animals, including 2 types of primates.

Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of the vaccine have been completed on August 1, 2020. All the volunteers are feeling well, no unforeseen or unwanted side effects were observed. The vaccine induced strong antibody and cellular immune response. Not a single participant of the current clinical trials got infected with COVID-19 after being administered with the vaccine. The high efficacy of the vaccine was confirmed by high precision tests for antibodies in the blood serum of volunteers (including an analysis for antibodies that neutralize the coronavirus), as well as the ability of the immune cells of the volunteers to activate in response to the spike S protein of the coronavirus, which indicates the formation of both antibody and cellular immune vaccine response.

Phase 3 clinical trial involving more than 2,000 people in Russia, a number of Middle Eastern (UAE and Saudi Arabia), and Latin American countries (Brazil and Mexico) will start on August 12. In August the Gamaleya Center will publish the data as part of an article in a major international scientific magazine.