MOSCOW, Russia
President of Russia, Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia had approved the world’s first #Covid-19 vaccine as dozens of other countries are still struggling to crack the code of this complex viral disease that broke out early February.
Russia has named the Vaccine
“Sputnik V”.
A registration
certificate on the Russian Health Ministry website notes that the vaccine will
enter civilian circulation on Jan. 1, 2021.
Tatyana Golikova, a
deputy prime minister in charge of health issues, said officials hoped that
vaccinations of medical workers could begin by late August or early September.
According to Kremlin,
the state-run Gamaleya Research Institute in Moscow in coordination with the
Russian Defense Ministry and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and its
partners have invested 4 billion rubles ($550,000) in the project.
The vaccine underwent
two phases of trials in June and July: The first involving 38 civilians and 38
military volunteers and the second involving 100 people.
Phase 3 trials, which
will involve several thousand participants, began with the shot’s
registration Tuesday. They will also be carried out in countries including
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines, according to RDIF
head Kirill Dmitriyev.
The World Health
Organization (WHO)’s overview from on July 31 lists the vaccine as still being
in Phase 1.
Russian scientists said
that the vaccine is a so-called viral vector vaccine, meaning it employs
another virus to deliver small parts of a pathogen and stimulate an immune
response.
It is an injection
solution based on the adenovirus, the common cold. China’s CanSino is developing
a similar technology with its coronavirus vaccine prototype.
Gamaleya chief
Alexander Gintsburg and the institute’s scientists have inoculated themselves
with the vaccine. Experts criticised their move as an unorthodox and rushed way
of starting human trials.
Dmitriyev has said he
and his family have also taken the vaccine.
Putin said Tuesday that
one of his daughters, whose identity he has neither confirmed nor denied to
date, has already taken the vaccine. He said the only side effect she
experienced was a high temperature of 38 degrees Celsius for one day.
“Several hundred”
members of Russia’s political and business elite may have been inoculated with
the experimental vaccine as early as April, Bloomberg reported in July. Some participants reported
experiencing fever and muscle aches after receiving the shots, while one
unnamed top executive said he had no side effects.
Vaccine developers tout
the vaccine as safe and Putin on Tuesday said it is “quite effective” and
“gives sustainable immunity,” citing his daughter’s response to the shot.
However, Scientists in
the West have raised concerns over the speed of development of Russian
vaccines, suggesting that researchers might be cutting corners after coming
under pressure from the authorities to deliver.
Russian virologists
have also warned that the vaccine could be dangerous for people who have
antibodies against the virus.
Meanwhile, World Health
Organisation last week urged Russia to follow established guidelines and go
“through all the stages” necessary to develop a safe vaccine. On Tuesday, it
said a stamp of approval on the vaccine candidate would require a rigorous
safety review of trial data.
Russian Health Minister
Mikhail Murashko said clinical trials involving several thousand participants
would continue.
RDIF’s
head Dmitriyev said a mass vaccination campaign will begin among volunteers in
Russia in October, a month after industrial production is expected to launch.
Twenty countries have pre-ordered more than 1 billion doses, he said.
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