Russia's Sputnik V vaccine 92% effective in fighting COVID-19
- par Thibaud Popelin
- dans Monde
- — Fév 4, 2021
"Russian "Sputnik V" has been recognised as the safest vaccine", the newspaper said.
"Our interim analysis of the randomized, controlled, phase 3 trial of Gam-COVID-Vac in Russia has shown high efficacy, immunogenicity, and a good tolerability profile in participants aged 18 years or older", said study co-lead author Inna V Dolzhikova, from Gamaleya National Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology, Russia.
"In the very near future, there are plans to establish production in foreign countries, which will satisfy the demand from more and more countries", he told reporters a day after The Lancet published the efficacy results.
A similar request from Pfizer and partner BioNTech for their vaccine is pending with the regulator.
From the first weeks of the pandemic, Putin ordered the country's scientific, political and military apparatus to work in overdrive to develop the world's first Covid vaccine - even if that meant taking shortcuts.
"The development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticised for unseemly haste, corner-cutting, and an absence of transparency", said a joint independent commentary by Ian Jones of the University of Reading and Polly Roy of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Before the publication of the vaccine data in Lancet, researchers had expressed concern over its safety and efficacy, partly for being rolled out before phase 3 trial - the final trial stage of a vaccine.
Russian Federation has contacted Germany to see if it can manufacture its Covid-19 vaccine there the day after clinical trial data showed that its Sputnik-V jab is 91.6 per cent effective.
Denis Logunov is a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The study included more than 2,100 people over age 60 and the vaccine appeared to be about 92 percent effective in them.
The vaccine has already been sent to other countries, including some in South America like Argentina and Bolivia.
"Our interim analysis of the randomized, controlled, phase-3 trial of Gam-COVID-Vac in Russian Federation has shown high efficacy, immunogenicity, and a good tolerability profile in participants aged 18 years or older", co-lead author Dr. Inna V Dolzhikova said at the media briefing. Human adenoviruses are viruses that cause the common cold. It was administered in two doses, 21 days apart.
The success of the vaccine restores Russian research capabilities to the world's top echelons, after the sector had been decimated by crises and corruption in the wake of the USSR's collapse in 1991.
The vaccine is named after the first Soviet space satellite.
Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev said: "The data published by The Lancet proves that not only Sputnik V is the world's first registered vaccine, but also one of the best". The vaccine is therefore called Sputnik V.
