The Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology has developed a vaccine against chikungunya fever. Aleksandr Gintsburg, director of the center, told Izvestia that the next step involves preclinical and clinical trials of the drug.
“It is impossible to conduct an epidemiological study on the vaccine’s protective properties because there is no incidence of the disease in our country. We need to understand what the experts reviewing the drug’s test results advise and what they will accept as proof of epidemiological efficacy,” the expert said.
He stated that the Russian vaccine does not contain a live virus and was developed on the same technological platform as Sputnik V, which uses genetically engineered adenoviruses. The scientist emphasized that the new drug is not intended for mass vaccination, but specifically for those who frequently travel to regions where the disease is endemic.
Chikungunya is a viral illness spread by Aedes mosquitoes, causing symptoms like high fever, severe joint pain, muscle pain, nausea, and rash, which typically begin 3-7 days after an infected mosquito bite.
According to Russia’s Federal State Agency for Health and Consumer Rights (Rospotrebnadzor), two cases of chikungunya have been recorded in the country this year. Both were within the same family, which had recently returned from a vacation in Sri Lanka. There is no risk of the infection spreading within the Russian Federation, as the fever is not transmitted from person to person and the population Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus does not pose an epidemiological threat, the agency stated. Rospotrebnadzor confirmed that the Perimeter system remains operational at border checkpoints. It analyzes epidemic risks and helps identify arriving citizens showing signs of infectious diseases.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first vaccine against the chikungunya virus in 2023, but suspended its biologics license application (BLA) in August following reports of safety concerns among vaccine recipients.
