1st scientific article about 'COVIran Barekat' published

The article is titled: "Safety and Potency of COVIran Barekat Inactivated Vaccine Candidate for SARS-CoV-2: A Preclinical Study."

"There is an urgent demand to manufacture an effective and safe vaccine to prevent SARS-CoV2 infection, which resulted in a global pandemic," the article's abstract says.

"In this study, we developed an inactivated whole-virus SARS-CoV-2 candidate vaccine named COVIran Barekat. Immunization at two different doses (3 microgram or 5 microgram per dose) elicited a high level of SARS-CoV-2 specific neutralizing antibodies in mice, rabbits, and non-human primates. The results show the safety profile in studied animals (include guinea pig, rabbit, mice, and monkeys)," it added.

"Rhesus macaques were immunized with the two-dose of 5 microgram and microgram of the COVIran Barekat vaccine and showed highly efficient protection against 104 TCID50 of SARS-CoV-2 intratracheal challenge compared with the control group. These results highlight the COVIran Barekat vaccine as a potential candidate to induce a strong and potent immune response which may be a promising and feasible vaccine to protect against SARS-CoV2 infection."

Mass production of the Iranian-made anti-Coronavirus began at a pharmaceutical factory run by the Execution of Imam Khomeini Order (EIKO) in Tehran in mid-May.