Vector specialists are fine-tuning a smallpox vaccine used in the USSR. It is also effective against monkeypox.
The Center of Virology and Biotechnology has begun development of a vector vaccine against monkeypox, Izvestia writes with reference to Andrei Prodeus, chief freelance pediatric allergist-immunologist of the Ministry of Health of the Moscow Region.
Prodeus noted that the vaccine used in the Soviet Union before 1980s protects against monkeypox, which can be encountered now. But that vaccine was a live vaccine, and no one works with that now. The doctor also added that in Russia, only Vector officially has strains of the smallpox virus, so he is working on a non-living vaccine.
The vaccine is in the third phase of clinical trials.
The day before Russian Federal Consumer Rights Protection and Human Health Control Service reported the first case of monkeypox infection in Russia - it was a young resident of St. Petersburg, who returned from Europe. His condition is satisfactory.