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MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/: A second group of 20 volunteers have been inoculated against the coronavirus infection by Russian military doctors as part of the vaccine’s clinical trials, the Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday.
"Twenty more volunteers were vaccinated today. These people will receive booster vaccination, with the second component of the vaccine to be injected in a span of three weeks," the ministry quoted Yevgeny Kryukov, chief of the Burdenko military hospital, as saying.
"No serious negative reactions or undesired responses were registered," the ministry said.
"After the vaccination, the volunteers will continue to be under round-the-clock medical supervision at the Burdenko hospital. They will undergo a spectrum of laboratory and instrumental tests to study the humoral immune response," Kryukov said, adding that the clinical trials were continued based on the primaryl data on the vaccine’s safety and acceptability received after the inoculation of the first group of volunteers on June 18.
The defense ministry said in early June that two groups of volunteers had been selected for the clinical tests of an anti-coronavirus vaccine. The first group of 50 servicemen includes five women and ten medics. The second group is comprised of civilians.
Clinical testing of the vaccine developed by the Gamalei National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology began on June 18. Eighteen volunteers were vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.