Clinical trials of world’s first COVID-19 vaccine completed; says Russia’s Sechenov University

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Vadim Tarasov, the director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Biotechnology said that the first group of volunteers who participated in the study will be discharged on Wednesday.

Moscow: As the world races towards finding an effective and safe vaccine against the novel coronavirus, the clinical trials of the world's first COVID-19 vaccine on volunteers at  Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University has been completed, said  Vadim Tarasov, the director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Biotechnology, reported news agency ANI. He also said that the first group of volunteers who participated in the study will be discharged on Wednesday, and the second on July 20th.

The university was conducting trials on the vaccine candidate produced by Gamalei Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Russia. They began trials on June 18. 

"Sechenov University has successfully completed tests on volunteers of the world's first vaccine against coronavirus," Tarasov said.

The objective of this stage of the trials was to test the vaccine's safety for human health, which was successfully done, said  Alexander Lukashev, the director of the Institute of Medical Parasitology, Tropical and Vector-Borne Diseases at Sechenov University.

"The safety of the vaccine is confirmed. It corresponds to the safety of those vaccines that are currently on the market," Lukashev told Sputnik, reported ANI.

Further plans on vaccine development are being determined by the developers, including the complexity of the epidemiological situation with the virus and the possibility of scaling up production. 

"Sechenov University in a pandemic situation acted not only as an educational institution but also as a scientific and technological research centre that is able to participate in the creation of such important and complex products as drugs ... We worked with this vaccine, starting with preclinical studies and protocol development, and clinical trials are currently underway," Tarasov added. 

More than a hundred vaccines against the novel coronavirus are currently under development or trials, globally. The coronavirus has infected more than 12 million people around the world, till now.