Russia’s Gamaleya Center Creates Technology for Rapid Development of Vaccines Against Different COVID-19 Variants
In an interview on the Russian channel Rossiya 24, the director of the Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology Nikolái Gamaleya, Alexandr Gintsburg, announced the development of a technology that allows the fabrication of new vaccines against mutated variants of the COVID-19 virus “very quickly and efficiently,” reported Mundo Sputnik.
The said technology, Gintsburg said, has the ability to “create vaccines that contain antigens not just from one variant of the coronavirus, but from two, three, four or five different antigenic variants.”
The director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RFPI), Kirill Dmitriev, had reported earlier that Sputnik V is, in essence, a platform on which various vaccines can be developed; from there derives the rapid development of antiviral technology.
Gintsburg assured that the preparation is already in its “advanced” phase and next Monday, February 15, a report on the matter will be presented to the authorities of the Russian Ministry of Health.
Gintsburg utilized the opportunity to report that the Gamaleya Institute is about to conclude the second phase of clinical trials of another coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik Light.
Regarding this new vaccine, the Russian news agency reported:
Sputnik Light will be mainly aimed at foreign markets and countries with strong epidemic foci, said Gintsburg, adding that in Russia mainly Sputnik V will be used.
Sputnik Light is a one-component vaccine that will provide immunity against the coronavirus for a period of 4 to 5 months.
Alexandr Gintsburg also informed that Sputnik Light will be used in countries that are not capable of developing their own vaccine and those that do not have sufficient resources to acquire on time the vaccines manufactured in other countries.
This vaccine decreases the probability of suffering serious illness from COVID-19, but does not altogether exclude the possibility of contracting the disease, Gintsburg stressed.
Featured image: The Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology’s had success with an Ebola vaccine developed in 2015 and now has scored a historic success with the Sputnik V vaccine© Yuri Kochetkov/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SC
