Original Ukrainian COVID-19 vaccine may appear in a year

"We need to make a long way for a vaccine candidate to become a vaccine. Three phases of clinical trials should be conducted. Now we select the necessary production in Ukraine, where it can be done. If our expectations come true and everything will be smooth, then we may get the original Ukrainian COVID-19 vaccine in about a year," Health Minister of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov said at a briefing, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

Despite the fact that American companies are involved in the creation of vaccine, the vaccine candidate is Ukrainian, the minister added.

Stepanov also noted that previous studies of the vaccine candidate had been conducted in laboratories in Turkey and the United States as Ukraine was in the process of restoration of laboratories of needed type of protection.

October 20, Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov together with scientists presented the results of the preclinical phase of the study of original Ukrainian COVID-19 vaccine candidate to President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. Preclinical trials of the vaccine candidate lasted almost six months.

The vaccine is being created by Ukrainian and American companies, as well as domestic scientists, in particular from the Institute of Microbiology of the National Academy of Sciences.

ol