Russian University Successfully Completes First COVID-19 Vaccine Trials

Despite the non-stop deluge of market-pumping vaccine trial press releases and leaks that seem to move futures even when the news is entirely procedural (ie when a new human trials get the green light to begin), we haven’t seen any coverage of a Russian vaccine trial that has reportedly become the first in the world to finish all clinical trials.

Vadim Tarasov, the director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Biotechnology, told Sputnik that clinical trials of the world’s first coronavirus vaccine on volunteers at the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University have been successfully completed.

“Sechenov University has successfully completed tests on volunteers of the world’s first vaccine against coronavirus,” Tarasov said.

The university began clinical trials of a vaccine produced by Russia’s Gamalei Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology on June 18, meaning the university managed to distill the entire process trial process down to just 3 weeks.

As for the volunteers, the first group will be discharged Wednesday, while the second will be discharged July 20.

The story comes with a caveat. The trials were solely intended to show that the vaccine is safe for human consumption and use. Several trials for therapeutics and vaccines in the west have also completed at least some trials proving safety. According to Alexander Lukashev, the director of the Institute of Medical Parasitology, Tropical, and Vector-Borne Diseases at Sechenov University, the safety objective was successfully achieved.

“The safety of the vaccine has been confirmed. It corresponds to the safety of those vaccines that are currently on the market,” Lukashev told Sputnik.

Apparently the results were encouraging enough that a “vaccine development plan” is already being rolled out by the developer to mass produce the vaccine.