Scientists said when Ukrainian COVID vaccine will be released in the country

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In Ukraine, scientists are working on the creation of our own vaccine against coronavirus. So far, the drug exists in the form of a laboratory sample, which has already been tested on animals, according to UATV.

For the first time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in the fall of 2020 that Ukraine has started the development of a home vaccine. It was about a drug developed by a Ukrainian-American concern with private funds.

“It is unique. It is not pathos or populism. Because it is not like the others. And this is really the key to this vaccine,” the head of the Ukrainian state noted.

The drug is created using a different technology than in other world countries, explains the director of the Palladin Institute of Biochemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Serhiy Komisarenko.

“It’s unique because none of the vaccines that are made in the world uses N-protein. Everyone uses the so-called S-protein. It is this spinous protein, which is located on the surface of the virus, plays the main role in the interaction of the virus with the human cell”, he said.

The vaccine has already been successfully tested in animals, but we can only talk about its effectiveness after the 3rd stage of clinical trials in humans. The drug still exists in the form of a laboratory sample, for research it is necessary to release several thousand doses. For this, the state will have to spend about UAH 100 million. 

“Last year, at the expense of the National Foundation for Basic Research, the National Academy of Sciences financed the development of 2 more vaccines. They are being created at the National Academy of Sciences – at the Institute of Biochemistry in Kyiv and at the Institute of Cell Biology in Lviv,” stressed Serhiy Komisarenko.   

In Lviv, researchers are working on the creation of a protein vaccine similar to the American drug Novavax. Research results show that their vaccine will be effective against modified strains of coronavirus. The studies are planned to be completed at the end of 2021 with a test on transgenic mice. Further research should be carried out on anthropoid apes, but they are simply not available for experiments in Ukraine. Also, problems appear with the capacity for the production of the completed product.

“There is one more question: where to produce this vaccine? In Ukraine, there is not a single production in bioreactors of recombinant strains of microorganisms. There is nothing to produce it,” said Andriy Sibirny, director of the Institute of Cell Biology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

The Palladin Institute of Biochemistry is confident that the production of a home vaccine can be set up and put on the market in about a year or two. The director of the institution, Serhiy Komisarenko, doesn’t exclude that COVID-19 can move to the level of a seasonal illness, and then the vaccine will need to be used on an ongoing basis.

“I hope, of course, that even then we will use the home vaccine”, the scientist added.

Delivery of the Chinese vaccine CoronaVac to the regions started.