Russia’s Sechenov University Successfully Completes Trials of World’s 1st COVID-19 Vaccine

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The clinical trials of the world’s first coronavirus vaccine on volunteers at the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University have been successfully completed, Vadim Tarasov, the director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Biotechnology, told Sputnik.

The university began clinical trials of a vaccine produced by Russia’s Gamalei Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology on 18 June.

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

He added that the first group of volunteers would be discharged on Wednesday and the second on 20 July.

According to Alexander Lukashev, the director of the Institute of Medical Parasitology, Tropical, and Vector-Borne Diseases at Sechenov University, the objective of this stage of the study was to show the vaccine’s safety on humans, which was successfully done.

“The safety of the vaccine has been confirmed. It corresponds to the safety of those vaccines that are currently on the market”, Lukashev told Sputnik.

A further vaccine development plan is already being determined by the developer, including the complexity of the epidemiological situation with the virus and the possibility of scaling up production, Lukashev added.

“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 noted.