MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/: Russia’s Federal Medical Biological Agency has developed seven vaccine prototypes against the novel coronavirus, the agency’s head, Veronika Skvortsova, said on Friday.
"As of today, the Federal Medical Biological Agency has developed seven prototypes of a genetically engineered vaccine assembled from fused proteins, with each of them having epitopes, i.e. parts that interact with the virus," she said in an interview with Russia’s TV ChannelOne.
The current task, in her words, is to choose the most efficient vaccine prototypes from among these seven. "First it is done it the computer modelling regime. From Monday, it will be done at the Microbiology Center of the Russian defense ministry which is certified to work with bio pathogens of the second class," she added.
She said however that a ready-to-use vaccine could be expected no earlier than in 11 months. "We plan to finish all tests by July and move on to pre-clinical trials. We plan to proceed to the first and second phase by the end of the current year - the first quarter of the next year," she noted.
