New strains of coronavirus come and go faster than vaccines can go into circulation, so it is necessary to simplify the rules for clinical trials for these drugs. Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, virologist Alexander Lukashev expressed this opinion in an interview with Izvestia.
“The development of a vaccine with a full cycle of clinical trials takes up to a year. Omicron began to spread in the Northern Hemisphere at the end of November, and the wave of this strain will be over by the time the vaccine is possible to be developed and tested. Thus, the development of vaccines against it would not make practical sense. This shows that we cannot currently win the race with new strains of coronavirus,” he said.
At the same time, the scientist added, from a technical point of view, the development of a new vaccine and the production of industrial batches can take less than two months.
“If we are to successfully counter new waves of coronavirus, then we need to rethink our approach to the rules for clinical trials of vaccines and greatly simplify them, by analogy with the way it is done for the flu virus. There is a very accelerated scheme, it is unique for the entire pharmaceutical industry. I think that it should be borrowed for the coronavirus,” Alexander Lukashev explained.
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