As the global race to find a COVID-19 vaccine continues, Russia believes it has had a breakthrough.
The country’s ministry of defense announced on Wednesday that participants in a vaccine trial had been discharged from the hospital after receiving a vaccine candidate. They had been undergoing daily examinations for 28 days.
The defense ministry said the participants left the hospital without “serious adverse events, health complaints, complications, or adverse reactions were not recorded.”
Russia’s defense ministry is developing the vaccine together with the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute. The trial included both military personnel and civilian volunteers. A second trial has begun and is scheduled to finish by the end of July.
The development advances as Russia reports nearly 750,000 infections and more than 11,000 deaths. The WHO said the country is experiencing cases that are “clustered in time, geographic location and/or by common exposures.”
Global Vaccine Race
As global coronavirus cases continue to rise, countries are racing to be the first to discover a vaccine.
In the United States, the country with the highest number of both cases and deaths, the pharmaceutical company Moderna has a vaccine candidate that just entered phase 3 of its clinical trial. In phase 3, the second-last phase, clinical trials are “conducted on larger populations and in different regions and countries” according to the WHO. The tests have been showing successful early results.
In Australia, a vaccine developed by the University of Queensland entered phase 1 of human trials in which developers test dosage range and side effects. Preliminary results are to be recorded three months after the vaccine’s initial dose.
The United Kingdom has two current vaccines that are being developed. One is developed by the University of Oxford and has entered phase 3 of clinical trials. Imperial College London is also working on a vaccine, which enters phase 1 of clinical trials.
In China, the biopharmaceutical company Sinovac is developing a vaccine that has just entered phase 3 of clinical trials and received approval from the Brazilian National Regulatory Agency to conduct a trial in Brazil.
Global infections passed 13.4 million on Wednesday. While making a vaccine normally takes years of testing, scientists hope to develop a coronavirus vaccine within 12 to 18 months.