On July 21, Maxim Stetsyuk, First Deputy General Director of Nanolek, took part in the conference “Development of the Vaccination Calendar under COVID-19 - Taking Care of Health and Longevity”, supported by Rossiyskaya Gazeta and the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation. The conference was organized by the All-Russian Union of Patients (ARUP).

The ARUP raises concerns about the deadlines set for the expansion of the national vaccination calendar: its upgrade is behind schedule even though the Immunoprophylaxis Development Strategy 2035 is already in place. Currently, the National Vaccination Calendar (NVC) includes 12 vaccinations instead of 15 recommended by the World Health Organization, and this number will not increase any time soon. Adult pneumococcal pneumonia vaccination is not expected to begin before 2025, whereas these efforts amidst the pandemic could provide additional protection for the elderly and those with chronic diseases, or with immunosuppression. Preventable outbreaks of diseases are an additional burden on health facilities that currently lack recourses for their operation.

The conference partners include the Research Institute of Pediatrics and Child Health of the Central Clinical Hospital of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Federal Scientific Clinical Center for Children and Adolescents of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency of Russia, Federal State Budgetary Institution Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor. Everyone agrees that the NPVC and preventive vaccination calendar need to be extended for epidemic-related reasons. The process will also be supported as experts say by public awareness campaigns, training for medical staff and launch of domestic vaccines, one of which that was developed by Nanolek against HPV is expected to hit the market in 2024.

“I believe what we need to do here is to join forces: manufacturers need to show and tell people what facilities exist to produce vaccines, doctors need to tell would-be patients what are the potential consequences. Openness and trust are important in this regard. In Russia, the vaccination calendar is financed by the government while in many other countries people pay for their own vaccinations themselves. When a citizen gets vaccinated and pays for it out of his or her own pocket, he or she becomes more loyal to vaccination. If we look back in history, we find that in the past vaccines took decades to produce. Nowadays we can make them faster, in less than five years. The medical community tasking a manufacturer with specifications to develop a vaccine mission can be confident that it will be launched in two to three years: this is how long it takes to develop a vaccine from scratch, firstly, and secondly, to learn how to control the quality of the vaccine. Then a testing phase begins, and the first step in this direction is to make sure it is safe. We need to communicate these findings to people, so that all of us understand that any vaccine commercially available in Russia has passed a safety test,” explained Maxim Stetsyuk, Executive Director of Nanolek. He also reminded of statistics: 1.5 million children die every year worldwide from vaccine-preventable infections, and vaccine prophylaxis for children under the age of 1 in low- and middle-income countries would inject more than $586 billion into the global economy.

Maxim also told about bottlenecks in production: “Our company decided that vaccine prophylaxis and immunobiological drugs would be our priority. We’re working hard to develop modern vaccines that will be in good demand in the future. However, some vaccines, such as rotavirus and chickenpox vaccines, are difficult to produce. If you plan to build such manufacturing facilities, you need to be sure that this vaccine will be included in the vaccination calendar and that there will be a strong demand for it in the future. Otherwise, you wont’t be able to produce any other items in your plant. Here again, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Industry, the manufacturers and the medical community must all share responsibility.

Based on findings of the scientific and practical conference, the All-Russian Union of Patients will prepare a Resolution with proposals on development of a national vaccine prevention system and submit it to the Russian Government.