Prevention of this group of diseases remains a priority, and the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation plans to cover at least 60% of the population with influenza vaccination in 2020. Speaking of the seasonal vaccine supply schedule, deliveries to remote regions started already on August 10: 34 mln doses have already been delivered to the regions of Russia, the population vaccination is under way in all constituent territories. On September 28, the second stage of vaccine shipments started; as a result, the regions will receive 26 mln more doses of preventive drugs.

Nacimbio Holding of the Rostec Corporation, special partner of the international V All-Russian GMP Conference, has been supplying flu vaccines as part of implementation of the National Immunisation Schedule since 2015. The medications contain current strains of type A and B influenza viruses recommended by the World Health Organization for the epidemic season of 2020/2021. The end-to-end manufacturing cycle has been organised at the production facilities of NPO Microgen and OOO FORT that are part of the holding.

“In recent years, Russia has created all conditions for the development of its own large-scale immunobiological production on the end-to-end technological cycle basis. As a result, today we have zero risks of disruption of mass influenza vaccination, because the Russian healthcare system has become fully self-sufficient in this sphere and has 100% of the necessary medications volume. Patients have access to modern vaccines that underwent the entire range of preclinical and clinical studies, have a proven and statistically accurate safety and efficiency profile, which fact is supported by years of successful use and the changes in the number of incidence cases.

The development of biotechnologies is a global trend. They ensure the growth of the pharmaceutical industry because they allow to influence the human organism in a more precise and efficient way and better meet the principles of modern healthcare. To support this area, special attention is paid to immunological biotechnologies and, specifically, to the improvement of the National Immunisation Schedule as the main tool to decrease the number of infection diseases,” commented Andrey Zagorsky, General Director of Nacimbio.

Vaccination has been recognised as the most efficient medical intervention ever invented by mankind. For example, immunisation is the main method used to fight one of the most wide-spread diseases causing significant social and economic damage, i.e. influenza. According to Rospotrebnadzor, in recent years a steady decline has been observed in the number of incidence cases – both in the population in general and in the risk groups – due to the increase in the flu vaccination coverage. On the grounds of efficiency of this preventive help type, including economic efficiency, each year work is conducted in Russia to expand its availability. Thus, this year flu vaccination stations for the population have been opened at the multifunctional service centres. Rospotrebnadzor appealed to employers to vaccinate their personnel, which means that the list of vaccination stations now also includes offices and companies.

Flu vaccination campaigns are traditionally conducted in autumn and in the first month of winter before the seasonal epidemic rise. Protective antibodies are produced two weeks after the vaccination and are maintained during the entire epidemic season.