NEW DELHI: Russia has started production of the novel coronavirus vaccine developed by the N. F. Gamaleya Federal Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, Russian Health Ministry’s press service said.

Russian Health Ministry, in a statement, said: “The production of the vaccine against the novel coronavirus COVID-19, developed by the N. F. Gamaleya Federal Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology has begun.” 

The coronavirus vaccine may enter production for civilian circulation a month after the launch of the third stage (post-registration) of the research, the center’s Director Alexander Gintsburg told Russian News Agency, TASS.

He further said that the civilian production will be launched in parallel, with post-registration research, but with some delay because there is not enough vaccine. I think this will be a delay of one month at maximum after the post-registration research begins, he added.

On August 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin had announced that his country’s health ministry had approved the world’s first coronavirus vaccine, adding that his daughter had received the shot of the vaccine.

Meanwhile, Brazil, India and a number of other countries are discussing with Russia production the Russian vaccine against the new coronavirus infection on their territory. 

Pertinent to mention the number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide crossed 21.5 million mark with 771000 deaths while in India, the number of cases stand at 2.53 million with 49,036 deaths.