COVID vaccine tracker: First batch of Russian vaccine ready

New Delhi, Aug 17: The first batch of the Russian Vaccine for the novel coronavirus has been produced, according to a report in Reuters news agency.

Russia had on August 11 said that a vaccine was being developed by Moscow's Gamaleya.

Institute and the same was ready and had been approved. The report said that Russia would roll out the vaccine by the end of this month.

There has been scepticism about this announcement by Russia. The global scientific community has said that the vaccine has been approved without the mandatory Phase-III human trials.

Phases-I and II went through testing in super-fast time. The process was completed in less than two months when vaccines usually take several months or years to complete the trials.

There are more than 160 vaccine candidates in the pre-clinical or clinical trials stage. 29 are in clinical trials while 6 are in the final stages of human trials. In India at least 8 candidate vaccines are being developed and two of these have entered Phase-II trials after completed the first phase.