Moscow (AFP)
Russia has announced it has started testing animals for the new coronavirus, and hopes to have promising first specimens in June.
"We are already starting tests on laboratory animals (...) to assess the efficacy and safety" of the vaccine, said Monday Ilnaz Imametdinov, an official of the State Center for Research in Virology and Biotechnology Vektor , to the public television channel Rossia 1.
In total, ten types of vaccine have been created to date in this center based in Novosibirsk (West Siberia), which has also developed tests to detect the new coronavirus, according to the chain.
"Starting in June, we plan to present one or two types whose tests will have given the best results," said Imametdinov.
Russia announced at the end of January that it had received the Covid-19 genome from China, assuring that it would immediately start developing a vaccine against this new coronavirus.
US health officials announced on Monday that the first clinical trial to test a vaccine against the new coronavirus had started in Seattle and was to include the participation of 45 adult volunteers.
According to the World Health Organization, 80% of cases of Covid-19 contamination are harmless, 14% are serious and almost 5% are critical, causing severe respiratory problems where the lungs fill with oxygen-preventing fluids reach the organs.
Officially, 93 cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in Russia and no deaths.
© 2020 AFP