 RUSSIA IN FACTS |
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Russia, China set up joint venture to make SARS vaccines
St Petersburg, 19 January: A Russian-Chinese joint venture in St Petersburg will be making SARS vaccines. An
agreement to this effect was signed yesterday by the Scientific-Research Institute of Influenza [SRII] of the Russian
Academy of Medical Sciences [RAMS] and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, Oleg Kiselev, the SRII director,
RAMS's corresponding member and head of the National Influenza Centre of the World Health Organization [WHO], has
announced.
The SRII, a leading research institute in the field, is being transformed into a scientific-research association
[SRA]. Under the WHO auspices the Russian SRA and a company of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology are
setting up a joint venture to make SARS vaccines in 2004.
The Russian side, Kiselev said, is investing intellectual property worth more than 20m dollars in this international
project - patents for inventions and results of fundamental and applied research into virus strains. The Chinese side is
financing joint experiments, vaccine clinical trials and serial production in the future.
The original biological material for receiving the SARS vaccine - variations of the so-called weakened coronavirus -
has been obtained, so the joint Russian-Chinese project has got off the ground, the professor said.
At the same time, he is not inclined to regard the vaccine as "a panacea for the deadly virus". "It
will not be possible to vaccinate everyone. The only sensible alternative to avoid an epidemic is to carry out general
preventive measures and to have strict border control," Kiselev said.
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