RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Safety and Potency of COVIran Barekat Inactivated Vaccine Candidate for SARS-CoV-2: A Preclinical Study JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2021.06.10.447951 DO 10.1101/2021.06.10.447951 A1 Asghar Abdoli A1 Reza Aalizadeh A1 Hossein Aminianfar A1 Zahra Kianmehr A1 Ebrahim Azimi A1 Nabbi Emamipour A1 Hamidreza Jamshidi A1 Mohammadreza Hosseinpour A1 Mohammad Taqavian A1 Hasan Jalili YR 2021 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/06/10/2021.06.10.447951.abstract AB There is an urgent demand to manufacture an effective and safe vaccine to prevent SARS-CoV2 infection, which resulted in a global pandemic. In this study, we developed an inactivated whole-virus SARS-CoV-2 candidate vaccine named COVIran Barekat. Immunization at two different doses (3 µg or 5 µg per dose) elicited a high level of SARS-CoV-2 specific neutralizing antibodies in mice, rabbits, and non-human primates. The results show the safety profile in studied animals (include guinea pig, rabbit, mice, and monkeys). Rhesus macaques were immunized with the two-dose of 5 µg and 3 µg of the COVIran Barekat vaccine and showed highly efficient protection against 104 TCID50 of SARS-CoV-2 intratracheal challenge compared with the control group. These results highlight the COVIran Barekat vaccine as a potential candidate to induce a strong and potent immune response which may be a promising and feasible vaccine to protect against SARS-CoV2 infection.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.