Russia declares itself 'first' to develop coronavirus vaccineThe vaccine has been developed by the Gamaleya research institute in coordination with the Russian defence ministryMOSCOW - Russia on Tuesday declared itself the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine with President Vladimir Putin saying one of his daughters had been inoculated. Russia has been pushing hard to quickly develop a coronavirus vaccine and said earlier this month it hoped to launch mass production within weeks and turn out "several million" doses per month by next year. The WHO had last week urged Russia to follow established guidelines and go "through all the stages" necessary to develop a safe vaccine. The vaccine developed by Russia is a so-called viral vector vaccine, meaning it employs another virus to carry the DNA encoding of the needed immune response into cells. Gamaleya's vaccine is based on the adenovirus, a similar technology to the coronavirus vaccine prototype developed by China's CanSino.

Source: Bangkok Post August 11, 2020 12:22 UTC