It is not broadly known worldwide that Russia has been one of the global leaders in vaccine research for centuries. Russian Empress Catherine the Great set an example in 1768 when she received the country’s first smallpox vaccination, 30 years before the first vaccination was done in the United States.
In 1892 Russian scientist Dmitri Ivanovsky observed an unusual effect while studying tobacco leaves infected with a mosaic disease. The leaves remained infectious even after the scientist filtered out the bacteria. Although it was still almost half a century before the first virus could be seen through a microscope, Ivanovsky’s research gave birth to a new science called virology.
Since Ivanovsky’s discovery, Russia has been one of the global leaders in virology and vaccine research, producing scores of talented scientists such as researcher Nikolay Gamaleya, who studied at the laboratory of French biologist Louis Pasteur in Paris and opened the world’s second vaccination station for rabies in Russia in 1886.
The Soviet Union continued to support research into viruses and vaccines. Everyone born after the Second World War received mandatory vaccinations against polio, tuberculosis and diphtheria. In a rare example of Cold War era cooperation, three leading Soviet virologists went to the United States in 1955 to offer testing opportunities in the Soviet Union for a U.S. vaccine against polio, a deadly disease which claimed millions of lives. If we were able to cooperate then, we can and must do it again now.
Decades of efforts by Russian and Soviet scientists led to the creation of an excellent research infrastructure, such as the National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Nikolai Gamaleya. This infrastructure ranges from one of the richest “virus libraries” in the world, created using a unique preservation technique, to experimental animal breeding centers. We are proud of this legacy, which allowed us to create the first approved COVID-19 vaccine in the world. We already received international requests for 1 bln doses of our vaccine and reached international agreements to produce 500 mln doses annually with the intention to ramp it up.
