Russia starts testing vaccine against novel coronavirus

YEREVAN, MARCH 20, ARMENPRESS. Russia’s Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing has launched tests of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Federal Service said in its website.

The statement says the prototypes of vaccines have been developed in a short period of time.

Experts have managed to create vaccines based on broadly used recombinant viral vectors of flu.

New vaccines are usually tested on sensitive laboratory animals.

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about an outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. WHO declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus a global pandemic and named the virus COVID-19.