A total of 155 drugs and 79 COVID-19 vaccines are currently being developed around the world, according to a review by the Austrian Institute for Health Technology Assessment (AIHTA).
According to the institute, most of the 155 medicines have been approved for the treatment of other viral diseases, now requires special justification for their admission to treatment of COVID-19. None of the 79 candidates for the vaccine have gone beyond the development stage, the review notes.
On Monday, the director of the National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after N.F. Gamaleya Alexander Gintsburg said that in the Russian Federation preclinical studies of the vaccine against coronavirus are scheduled to be completed by the end of May, by June 15 there is a possibility to enter the state registration of the drug. Previously, Director General of the Center for Virology and Biotechnology “Vector” Rinat Maksutov proposed to conduct preclinical studies of the vaccine against COVID-19 until June 22, and June 29 to conduct the study on 180 volunteers.
On 11 March, the World Health Organization declared an outbreak of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19 a pandemic. According to the latest WHO data, more than 2.24 million cases of infection have been registered in the world and more than 152 thousand people have died.