OREANDA-NEWS. On Thursday, March 25, the Russian «Chumakov Center» officially began to produce the third domestic vaccine against the coronavirus «KoviVak», the press service of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation reported.

The head of the Ministry of Education and Science Valery Falkov launched the packaging of the first batch of vials of the vaccine marked 0001. «Thus, the third Russian vaccine goes into civil circulation and will appear in the regions in the coming days», the report says.

The «KoviVak» vaccine is a so-called whole-virion vaccine. It is based on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is specially treated so, that it has lost it's infectious properties, but at the same time retains the ability to cause an immune reaction. Such vaccines contain the entire set of proteins of the viral particle, and the immune response is expected to be the most complete. Earlier it was reported, that the basis of «KoviVak» was a coronavirus taken from one of the patients of the Moscow hospital in Kommunarka.

Registration of «KoviVak» took place in February of this year. The initial volumes of this vaccine will be released into civilian circulation by the end of March. At least 10 million doses can be produced by the end of the year, the center's available capacity allows it to produce 775 thousand doses in the first half of the year, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said earlier.

«KoviVak» is available in the form of a suspension for intramuscular injection.