Russia is rushing to win the race to develop a vaccine against the novel Coronavirus, and in the process has planned to approve by early August a vaccine that is still in the trial phase, according to a report in CNN.

The vaccine, being developed by Gamaleya Institute in Moscow, is likely to be approved for public use on August 10 and the frontline health workers will receive the shots first, the report said. "It's a Sputnik moment," CNN quoted said Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund financing the vaccine research, as saying. He was referring to the successful launch of the world's first satellite by the Soviet Union in 1957.