The main advantages of EpiVacCorona, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology Vector in the Russian city of Novosibirsk, are its effectiveness, safety and simplicity of production, the center’s Director-General Rinat Maksyutov said on Monday.
“The expected advantage of this vaccine compared to other vaccine platforms is the effectiveness of the vaccine against antigenically evolving strains since the vaccine contains conservative SARS-COV-2 epitopes, the safety of the vaccine, … simplicity of production and stability of the components, as well as the mode of storage and transportation,” Maksyutov told a virtual conference.
The scientist also said that the vaccine contained only short sections of a viral protein, which increases its safety.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the registration of the country’s second vaccine — the first one being Sputnik V by the Gamaleya Institute — against the coronavirus, which has been moved to post-registration clinical trials.
EpiVacCorona is planned to be introduced into civil circulation on 1 January 2021, according to data from the vaccine registration certificate published in the state registry of medicines. As per the World Health Organisation’s tracker of vaccine candidate progress, EpiVacCorona has completed phase one of the clinical trials.
