Covid-19 vaccine: WHO asks Russia to follow established regulations

The World Health Organisation has cautioned Russia against rushing through with its novel Coronavirus vaccine.

Russia has announced plans to approve a vaccine candidate being developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute by the second week of this month. It has also said that the vaccine would be in market by next month, and mass vaccinations would begin by October.

The superfast speed of development and approval has led to scepticism.

“There are established practices and there are guidelines out… Any vaccine (or medicine) for this purpose should be, or course, going through all the various trials and tests before being licensed for roll-out,” Christian Lindmeier, a spokesperson for WHO, was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying in Geneva on Tuesday.

“Sometimes individual researchers claim they have found something, which is, of course, as such, great news. But between finding or having a clue of maybe having a vaccine that works, and having gone through all the stages, is a big difference,” the spokesperson said.

Russia’s candidate vaccine was reported to have completed phase-I human trials in the second week of July.

Russia has indicated that it planned to approve the vaccine without undertaking phase-III human trials, the final stage in which a candidate vaccine is tested for its effectiveness in real-life situations, outside laboratory conditions.

This rush to produce the vaccine is leading to a lot of discomfort. Over the weekend, while testifying before a panel of US lawmakers, Anthony Fauci, a top US public health expert and one of the most trusted voices on the Coronavirus epidemic, had expressed doubts over the vaccines being produced in China and Russia.

The WHO spokesperson said the agency had not been informed by Russia about its plans to deploy the vaccine. “If there was anything official, then our colleagues in the European office would definitely look into this.

In general terms, there are a set of guidances and regulations, rules, how to deal with safe development of a vaccine… These should be definitely followed in order to make sure that we know what the vaccine is working against, who it can help, and of course, also if it has any negative side effects,” the spokesperson said.

Developers of other leading vaccine candidates have said they hope to be ready with the vaccine by early next year, if not by the end of this year itself.

The World Health Organization (WHO), meanwhile, has warned that a "small mistake" in the vaccine could cost millions of lives. Many researchers claim that the corona vaccine will be available by the end of this year or early 2021.