A coronavirus vaccine candidate developed in Russia prompted an immune response and didn't cause serious adverse reactions in early trials, according to new data released today in the journal The Lancet. This data was released weeks after Russia announced that it had approved its vaccine for the general population (but had actually only approved it for a small group of people), drawing criticism from public health experts who said there was not enough data to prove the vaccine was safe and effective.
Between June 18 and Aug. 3, the researchers enrolled 76 healthy participants between 18 and 60 years old to be given the candidate vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, in one of two Russian hospitals, Live Science reported. In total, 18 volunteers received one formulation of the vaccine, another 18 received another and 40 people received both. "Both vaccine formulations were safe and well tolerated," the researchers wrote in the paper. None of the participants had serious adverse effects, the researchers wrote.
The vaccine generated an immune response in all participants, prompting the immune systems to produce neutralizing antibodies (molecules that can latch onto the virus and block it from infecting cells) and other immune cells, such as T cells, against the coronavirus.
The researchers noted in the paper that neutralizing antibody levels were lower than those reported for the University of Oxford vaccine and other vaccines, such as Moderna's based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. But the level of neutralizing antibodies was comparable with the amount of neutralizing antibodies that the body develops naturally in patients who recover from COVID-19.