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Russia struggles to keep up in race for virus vaccine
MOSCOW, May 29, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – When Russian scientists boasted
that they had tested a coronavirus vaccine on themselves, reactions
ranged from praise of their commitment, to outrage over their methods.
Their actions hint at a difficult reality for Russian policymakers
— the country is no longer the vaccine developer it was in Soviet
times and it is struggling to match virus research being carried out
elsewhere.
Alexander Gintsburg of Moscow’s Gamaleya research institute said
last week he had taken a dose of a so-called viral vector vaccine that
he hopes will complete clinical trials by the end of the summer.
He wants then to start producing his vaccine, which is similar to
one being developed by Chinese firm CanSino.
Russia is among the countries racing to develop a vaccine and the
Gamaleya project is one of several homegrown initiatives.
But Gamaleya’s self-experiments were condemned by the country’s
clinical research association as a “crude violation of the foundations
of clinical research conduct, Russian legislation, and international
norms”.
– ‘National prestige’ –
The stakes are undoubtedly high. Lockdowns and other containment
measures are doing long-term economic damage, and this week Moscow’s
mayor said some measures would have to remain until a vaccine is
produced.
“I am alarmed by these promises about developing a vaccine by
September,” said Vitaly Zverev, a professor and laboratory head at the
Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Sera.
He said the self-experimentation was probably the result of a push
to produce the vaccine quickly.
“Clearly, whoever makes the vaccine will get the top prize,
countries will buy it… it reminds me of a race, and I don’t like
it,” he told AFP.
MORE/MRU/2220hrs
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Biotech firm BioCad in Saint Petersburg is Russia’s only private
developer to be listed by the World Health Organization as a candidate
to deliver a vaccine.
“The Soviet school (of vaccine research) was one of the strongest in
the world,” director Dmitry Morozov said in an interview, citing polio
and smallpox vaccines used in many countries.
By some accounts, the Soviet Union provided 1.5 billion doses of
the smallpox vaccine.
BioCad is developing a potential vaccine with Siberian institute
Vektor, which Morozov says are the “real leaders” in the field since
the Soviet times.
But he added that while there were plenty of active researchers in
the country, “there is work to do” before Russian products can be
brought to market.
Alexander Lukashev, director of the Martsinovsky Institute of
Medical Parasitology, agreed that taking cutting-edge research from
the lab to real life is a hurdle that may prove especially high for
Russia.
“I can’t think of mass vaccines made in quantities of more than one
million doses produced by Russia,” he told AFP.
– State-protected viruses –
Although developing a vaccine was “a question of national
prestige”, Lukashev warned that proving long-term safety quickly is
impossible, and recent technologies like viral vector would make it
too expensive for mass production.
Vaccine development in Russia suffered a downturn in the 1990s from
which it never recovered, according to Zverev.
Chemical producers that used to belong to research institutes have
been sold off or fell apart and now materials have to be imported. But
international cooperation is tricky.
Officials in Moscow worry that Western countries could use
information gleaned from Russian “biological materials” to develop
bioweapons.
As a result Zverev’s institute cannot fully engage with the
European Virus Archive, an NGO facilitating scientific exchange, by
selling Russian viruses for the collection.
“Our colleagues send us viruses, but we cannot give ours because
they are protected by law,” he said.
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