Research Institute of Influenza in St. Petersburg testing three foreign COVID-19 vaccines

ST. PETERSBURG, July 16. /TASS/. The Smorodintsev Research Institute of Influenza in St. Petersburg has begun testing of three foreign vaccines against the novel coronavirus on volunteers, acting director of the institute Dmitry Lioznov said at a press conference at TASS on Thursday. "Our institute has begun clinical testing of three foreign vaccines, this is the third stage. <…> Those vaccines have shown to be safe during previous testing. Previously, several dozen, even several hundred people were vaccinated, the vaccines showed to be safe, they triggered an immune response. Right now, this research is held on thousands [of people], this is a multicentral research in various states that can help estimate the efficiency of this vaccine," Lioznov said, not specifying the country that had developed those vaccines. According to him, research should begin in early August. The director of the institute expressed confidence that one of the tested vaccines would be accessible in Russia. In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 13,717,900 people have been infected worldwide and more than 587,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 8,172,400 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe. To date, 752,797 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 531,692 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 11,937 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation. Read more