Russia's Chumakov research center has officially launched production of the country's third coronavirus vaccine, CoviVac, the ministry of Science and Higher Education said on Thursday.
Russian Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov launched the first package of vaccine ampoules, labeled 0001. "This means, the third Russian vaccine enters civil circulation and will be available in the regions in the coming days," the ministry said in a statement.
The director general of the Chumakov center, Aidar Ishmukhametov, told reporters on Thursday that specialists gave "good" assessment of the level of antibodies that was observed in volunteers vaccinated with CoviVac.
The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service said it had agreed on the maximum selling price of the vaccine in the amount of 4,330 rubles ($57) per package with 10 ampules.
On February 20, CoviVac became the third coronavirus vaccine registered in Russia. CoviVac is a whole-virion vaccine based on modified SARS-CoV-2 virus that is unable to cause disease but boosts immunity against the coronavirus. The vaccine was developed from the samples taken from one of COVID-19 patients.
