Russia can develop a vaccine against any coronavirus strains: Expert

MOSCOW, Dec 21, 2020, TASS. The Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immune and Biological Products at the Russian Academy of Sciences has enough experience and technologies to develop a vaccine against any mutated SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus strains, the Center’s director, Aidar Ishmukhametov, told TASS.

“Our experience show that the coronavirus strains we detect do not differ dramatically, which means that the pace of its mutation is not rapid. But even if we learn that it has mutated seriously, we have a technology to simply change the primary strain. It is a rather simple solution,” he said.

Speaking about cases of reinfection, he noted that so far there are no reliable data that such cases are frequent. “Cases when RNA was recovered to prove it was the coronavirus and some time later RNA was recovered again – such cases are rare. So, I would rather not be in a hurry to share the viewpoint that there are a lot of reinfection cases. The more so, when some are trying to link it with mutations of the virus,” he said.

The Chumakov Federal Scientific Center for Research and Development of Immune and Biological Products was created on the basis of the Institute of Poliomyelitis and Virus Encephalitis of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences. Academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences Mikhail Chumakov was the Institute’s founder and first director (until 1972). Today the Chumakov Center is a leading world research organization in the sphere of medical virology.

The Center has developed its own dead whole-virion vaccine against the novel coronavirus infection. The vaccine is currently subject to clinical test.

Whole-virion vaccines are based either on artificially weakened viruses incapable of causing a disease or killed (inactivated) viruses.