Russia says a second Covid-19 vaccine is on its way which 'avoids the side-effects of the first one'. Earlier this month, Vladimir Putin rushed to launch the Sputnik5 vaccine in a blaze of publicity, but criticism soon followed after test subjects reported numerous side effects.
Russia's release of the drug was met with widespread scepticism as to its efficacy and its likely the second vaccine, dubbed EpiVacCorona, will be similarly doubted.
The World Health Organization said last month that a working vaccine will not be available until at least early 2021.
Russia is developing EpiVacCorona in a former top-secret Soviet biological weapons research plant in Siberia, which is now a world-leading virology institute.
Clinical trials of Russia's second vaccine will be completed in September but 57 volunteers who used as human guinea-pigs report no side-effects, scientists have claimed.