Russia to Produce 30 Mln Doses of Experimental COVID-19 Vaccine

Russia plans to produce 30 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine domestically this year, with the potential to manufacture a further 170 million abroad, according to the head of the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

In exclusive statements to Reuters, Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) head Kirill Dmitriev said that a larger phase III trial involving several thousand people is expected to begin in August.

“We believe that based on the current results it will be approved in Russia in August and in some other countries in September..., making it possibly the first vaccine to be approved in the world,” he added.

It is worth mentioning that, Russia announced last Sunday that Sechenov University has successfully completed the clinical trials on volunteers of the world's first vaccine against Coronavirus (COVID-19).

The director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Biotechnology at Sechenov University said that the first group of volunteers would be discharged on Wednesday and the second on July 20, according to Sputnik News Agency.

On his part, Alexander Lukashev, the director of the Institute of Medical Parasitology, Tropical and Vector-Borne Diseases at Sechenov University, said that the objective of this stage of the study was to show the vaccine's safety for human health, which was successfully done.