Sputnik V vaccine is 95 percent effective according to a second interim analysis of clinical trial data
Moscow:
Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is 95 percent effective according to a second interim analysis of clinical trial data, its developers said Tuesday.
The two-dose vaccine will be available in international markets for less than $ 10 (8.40 euros) per dose, they said, and will be free to Russian citizens.
It can be stored between two and eight degrees Celsius (between 35.6 and 46.4 degrees Fahrenheit), they said, rather than the freezing temperatures required for some other vaccines.
Calculations of its effectiveness were based on preliminary data obtained 42 days after the first dose, the Russian Health Ministry, the state research center Gamaleya and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said in a statement.
The statement said the vaccine had shown 91.4 percent effectiveness 28 days after the first dose, a figure based on 39 cases.
Forty-two days later, after a second dose, the data showed “a vaccine efficacy of greater than 95 percent.”
However, it did not take note of the number of coronavirus cases used to make the final calculation.
“The second analysis was performed one week after the volunteers received the second dose, which means that their bodies have partially reacted to both doses,” Gamaleya director Alexander Gintsburg said in the statement.
He said the center expects the efficacy rate to be “even higher” three weeks after the second dose.
The statement said that 22,000 volunteers had been vaccinated with the first dose and more than 19,000 with both doses.
Overseas trials of the vaccine are also underway in the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Belarus, and other countries.
Russia became the first country to register a coronavirus vaccine in August, but it did so ahead of large-scale clinical trials that are still ongoing.
Last month, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had registered a second coronavirus vaccine, EpiVacCorona, as the global race to produce an effective vaccine to fight the pandemic, which has now claimed the lives of nearly 1.4, intensifies. millions of people.
Putin said last week that Russia had manufacturing agreements in place with China and India and encouraged Brazil and South Africa to also mass-produce Russian-made vaccines.
Pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their vaccine against the virus is 95 percent effective, while American company Moderna said last week that early results showed its candidate was 94.5 percent effective.
(With the exception of the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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