Russia aims to produce "millions" of vaccine doses by 2021

The head of the Russian direct investment fund, which funds the experiments, said he expected the official registration of the vaccine to be completed "within ten days."

Moscow:

Russia said on Monday that it aims to launch mass production of the Corona virus next month and transfer "several million" doses per month by next year.

Officials said that the state is moving forward with several prototypes for vaccines, and one that has been tested by the Aesthetic Institute in Moscow has reached advanced stages of development and is about to pass the state registration.

"We are very dependent on starting mass production in September," Industry Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview published by the state news agency TASS.

"We will be able to guarantee production volumes of several hundreds of thousands per month, with eventually increasing to several million by the beginning of next year," he said, adding that one of the developers is preparing production technology at three sites in central Russia.

The head of the Russian direct investment fund, which funds the experiments, said he expected the official registration of the vaccine to be completed "within ten days."

"If this happens in the next ten days, we will be ahead not only of the United States but of other countries as well, and it will be the first vaccine against registered coronavirus," RDIF chief Kirill Dmitriev said in televised remarks.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Saturday that another vaccine developed by the Victor Laboratory in Siberia is currently undergoing clinical trials and two more will begin a human test within the next two months.

Aesthetic vaccine is a viral vector vaccine, which means that it uses another virus to transfer DNA that encodes the necessary immune response to cells.

Aesthetic Vaccine Based on Adenovirus, a technique similar to the prototype coronavirus vaccine developed by Chinese CanSino, is currently in the advanced stage of clinical trials.

- "Who will buy it?" -

The state-run Aesthetic Institute was criticized after the researchers and its director injected themselves with the prototype several months ago, as specialists criticized the move as an unconventional and impulsive way to start human experiments.

It is too early to register a vaccine, Vitaly Zverev, head of the laboratory at the Michnikov Vaccine and Sera Research Institute.