UPDATE 2 - Human Trials Of COVID-19 Vaccine To End In July - Russian Defense Ministry Newspaper

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 03rd June, 2020) Russia's Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology and Defense Ministry will complete all clinical trials of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) by the end of July, Sergey Borisevich, the head of the 48th Central Scientific Research Institute of the Russian Defense Ministry, said.

"Currently, the Defense Ministry, jointly with the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology named after N.F. Gamaleya, has completed pre-clinical studies of an experimental sample of the vaccine against COVID-19," Borisevich told the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

"By the end of July all the necessary clinical trials are to be completed," he said.

Borisevich said that as part of the pre-clinical studies, specialists of the 48th Central Research Institute conducted studies on monkeys and hamsters.

"During the studies, the safety and protective effectiveness of the drug were shown and proven. Based on the results of these studies, scientific and technical documentation was prepared to obtain permits for conducting clinical trials," he said.

Russia's overall number of recorded coronavirus cases has topped 423,000. The country's COVID-19 death toll is over 5,000. More than 186,000 people have recovered.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a pandemic on March 11.

According to the global health body, the coronavirus death toll worldwide has surpassed 376,000 people, with the number of cases worldwide exceeding 6,194,000.