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Belarus to roll out pilot batch of its COVID-19 vaccine in 2022

MINSK, 22 October (BelTA) – The first pilot batch of Belarus’ own COVID-19 vaccine will be available in 2022, Director of the Institute of Biophysics and Cell Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Andrei Goncharov told the MIR 24 TV channel, BelTA informs.

“The first prototypes were developed in May this year; full-fledged prototypes containing substances that enhance the immune response were created at the end of June. Laboratory tests have been completed, they have shown good results. Now pre-clinical trials are underway,”Andrei Goncharov said.

Full-fledged pre-clinical animal trials will begin next year. “Now preliminary studies are underway to select the necessary strains in order to make sure that the vaccine is not toxic and does not kill animals. The results of these studies are satisfactory so far, animals are all alive even though the vaccine was administered in different ways and at doses that were ten times higher than the standard. Clinical trials on humans will most likely begin in the first half of the year, because we are ahead of schedule. Initially we had planned to develop a prototype in two years, then this period was reduced to a year, then to six months, and we did it,” the director of the institute said.

According to him, the first pilot batch of the vaccine will be developed in 2022. “The work will be jointly done by BelVitunipharm and Belmedpreparaty. BelVitunipharm will produce an inactivated virus, while Belmedpreparaty will finalize the vaccine and do the bottling. A completely new biotechnological facility to produce various vaccines, not only against coronavirus, will be built on the premises of BelVitunipharm. A full-cycle production will be launched there,” the scientist informed.

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