MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/: The coronavirus vaccine might be registered in Russia in August, Director of the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology Alexander Gunzburg said in an interview with Rossiya 1 channel.
"I believe by the end of the summer [a vaccine will be registered]. I would say so. In August, I hope that everything will go as planned and there will be no surprises," he said.
Now the development of the vaccine is at the stage of preclinical trials, they might last another month. At this stage, toxicity, reactogenicity, and other criteria are determined, based on which it will be possible to begin testing the vaccine in humans.
The vaccine, according to Gunzburg, will be administered in the right shoulder, but all Russians will not be able to receive it at the same time. "The Ministry of Health is thinking about how to do this, what capacities can be used to maximize production of vaccines," he added.
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.
