Vaccines against COVID-19 can be altered to fight new strains, developer says - TASS

Vaccines against the coronavirus can be quickly altered in the future if new strains emerge, without conducting pre-clinical and clinical trials, General Director of the Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology Rinat Maksyutov said in an interview with RT on Wednesday.

"Annually, on the basis of data on circulating strains of the flu virus the formulation of vaccines is being determined and altered if necessary. For example, for the Northern hemisphere, at the end of February the WHO determines the formulation of vaccines for the next epidemic season and beginning in March, using updated strains of the flu virus, the production of a vaccine begins in order to launch mass inoculation in the fall," he said.

 "Depending on the platform used, vaccines (against the coronavirus - TASS) can be quickly altered without the need to conduct expanded pre-clinical and clinical trials, like in case of a flu vaccine with annual changes. In reality, the situation will become clear with time," he added. 

Earlier, Darya Yegorova, senior researcher at the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology that developed the Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus, stated that some mutations and strains of the novel coronavirus cause serious apprehension among scientists, therefore it is necessary to constantly monitor the situation and check the effectiveness of the existing vaccines against the virus.