Development of First Prototype Bulgarian COVID-19 Vaccine to be Presented at Vaccine Congress

The development of the first prototype of the Bulgarian vaccine against COVID-19 will be presented today by Prof. Andrey Chorbanov at a scientific forum. This is the World Congress of Vaccines, in which Prof. Chorbanov will participate online with a report to present the first prototype of the Bulgarian vaccine, funded by the Pasteur Institute - Paris, said in an interview with BTA Prof. Penka Petrova - Director of the Institute in Microbiology "Stefan Angelov" of BAS.

She explained that the first prototype of the Bulgarian vaccine against COVID-19 is a collection of short peptides packaged in lipid nanoparticles. The vaccine is multi-epitope and targets many antigens in the coronavirus. The project with the Pasteur Institute is coming to an end. The obtained scientific results are good and significant and can already be announced. Therefore, Prof. Andrey Chorbanov will present at this forum the achievements of the team for the development of the Bulgarian vaccine against COVID-19 so far.

Prof. Petrova announced that "we do not have a vaccine in a vial that can be administered to humans." Intensive experiments with laboratory mice are forthcoming, after which it will be clear whether the vaccine is safe and effective. However, in order to be approved for use in humans, it is necessary to undergo the next Phases 1, 2 and 3 of clinical trials, explained the director of the Institute of Microbiology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. "We cannot currently answer any of these questions regarding the safety and efficacy of the future vaccine, but as a scientific product, the development is reliable. If in the future a pharmaceutical company undertakes to do the phases of research on its action in humans, it will already be possible to talk about an...