Recruitment of volunteers to test COVID nasal vaccine to kick off on January 15
«Recruiting of volunteers for tests of a nasal coronavirus vaccine will begin on January 15. Tests will begin immediately after first volunteers are chosen. There will be several groups of volunteers. The groups will be different, of vaccinated and non-vaccinated. The biggest problem will be to find people who have not had Covid and have not been vaccinated,» he said, TASS reports.
Along with the vaccine, the Center’s testing system for identifying antibodies to the coronavirus after the use of the nasal vaccine will also be tested. «The biggest problem in the process of the development of the nasal vaccine form was in creating a testing system and the markers that would indicate that our testing systems actually identify the antibody titers and that these titers are enough to ensure protection,» Gintsburg said.
«We have developed it [the testing system] and will study how it can help us in our tests. We will need the testing systems a little later, when the volunteers are vaccinated [with the nasal form], some two to three weeks later. And the we will see how our testing systems work,» he added.
In October, the Gamaleya Center received a Russian health ministry’s permit for the second phase of clinical tests of a nasal form of the coronavirus vaccine. The Center’s director Alexander Gintsburg said that the nasal form would be an addition to the regular vaccine to ensure an extra barrier to the infection as it helps develop tissue immunity in the nasal pharynx.