The Russia recorded his third vaccine against the Covid-19, a step prior to the final phase of clinical trials.
From the middle of March, the first 120,000 doses will be put into circulation. Russia is now the only country where three vaccines already exist
, welcomed Mikhail Michoustine, the Prime Minister, during a government meeting broadcast on television on Saturday February 20.
Called Kovivak, this third vaccine was designed by the Moscow Chumakov Research Center. Russia has already registered the Sputnik V vaccine, in August, and EpiVacCorona, registered in October. Since January, it has been carrying out a massive vaccination campaign for its population.
The first vaccine, the early announcement of which has raised doubts within the scientific community, has recently benefited from recognition of its effectiveness in a study published by the medical journal The Lancet , validated by independent experts.
It is now authorized in more than twenty countries.
“We are accelerating the production rates of vaccines”
The Russian authorities are trying to make production agreements around the world, rather than exporting their vaccines, for lack of sufficient capacity to meet the national demand, which is a priority.
We are speeding up vaccine production rates. Over 10 million doses of Sputnik V have been produced, and around 80,000 of EpiVacCorona
, said Mikhail Michoustine on Saturday.
In Russia, the registration of Kovivak means that it must now pass phase III of the tests, scheduled for March on 3,000 people, according to the Russian Ministry of Research.
Unlike the other two vaccines, the latter uses an inactivated virus, a more conventional technology. The ministry specifies that it is, for the time being, only recommended for people aged 18 to 60 years.
According to the government’s daily report, 4.13 million infections have been recorded in Russia, placing the country fourth in the world behind the United States, India and Brazil.
But, for a long time, Russia has made public only partial statistics, counting only the deaths of Covid-19 identified as such after autopsy. This number, the only one updated daily, stood at 82,396 on Wednesday, far from the more than 162,000 deaths recorded by the statistics agency as of December 31, 2020.
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