Russia Cancer Vaccine: Russia has announced that it has developed a cancer vaccine, which will be distributed free of cost to patients as early as 2025. The vaccine will reportedly be used to treat cancer patients rather than being given to the public for cancer prevention.

Andrei Kaprin, director general of the Radiology Medical Research Center of the Russian Health Ministry, announced that the country has developed its own mRNA vaccine against cancer and it will be distributed to people free of charge, Russia's TASS news agency reported.

Expected to arrive in early 2025

It is expected that this vaccine will be available to the public in early 2025. Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, told TASS that pre-clinical trials of the vaccine have shown that it suppresses tumor growth and possible metastasis.

Putin announced in February

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin had said that Russian scientists are close to creating a vaccine for cancer that could soon be available to patients. In his televised speech in February, he said, "We have come very close to creating the so-called cancer vaccine and a new generation of immunomodulatory drugs."

For which cancer will this vaccine be treated?

It is not yet clear what cancer the vaccine is meant to treat or what it is called. Other countries are working on similar projects. For example, according to Newsweek, the British government has signed a contract with a German-based company called BioNTech to develop personalized cancer treatments.

Pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck & Co are developing an experimental cancer vaccine that a mid-stage study showed could halve the chance of recurrence or death from melanoma — the deadliest skin cancer — after three years of treatment.

According to the World Health Organisation, there are few licensed vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes a number of cancers, including cervical cancer, as well as vaccines against hepatitis B (HBV), which can cause liver cancer.