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Journalists from The Times carried out an investigation and found images of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson turning into a monkey-like creature walking down White Street in London. According to the publication, existing evidence confirms that Russian officials are involved in spreading disinformation.
According to The Times, the investigation “revealed a Russian disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting the coronavirus vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and spreading fears about the vaccine.
According to the post, images, notes and videos were created in Russia. They present a vaccine made in the UK as dangerous. Now it is trying to distribute these images on social networks around the world.
The main idea behind these visual aids is that the vaccine, which pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is preparing to produce millions of doses, can turn humans into monkeys because it uses the chimpanzee virus. The campaign is targeting countries where Russia seeks to sell its production of the Sputnik V vaccine, as well as Western countries, The Times reported.
This could be detrimental not only to the University of Oxford’s vaccine program, but to broader global coronavirus testing as well, as a disinformation campaign could spur conspiracy theorists and anti-vaccination activists.
The source of the White Street article called this false information “persistent and despicable behavior that could seriously harm people’s health. Such a lie does enormous harm to all of us, to all the people in the world. Therefore, we must be vigilant, detect and combat such activities. Helping spread factual information about COVID-19 and vaccines is critical to reaching everyone. “
The footage was given to The Times by someone involved in the disinformation campaign, concerned about the damage this activity could cause to public health and the fight against the virus. It is not clear whether this propaganda attempt was directly led by the Kremlin, but there is evidence that some Russian officials contributed to its organization and dissemination, the publication notes.
A source associated with the campaign reported that its main objective was to promote the visual material on Western websites. The substance has also been sought for distribution in countries such as India and Brazil, where Russia is trying to sell its vaccine.
“There is evidence that the campaign has already started. A small UK news portal removed two images from his cache a few days ago when contacted by The Times. Another Brussels portal related to him, which has 20 thousand. unique visitors per month, still showing one of the memos.
The plan to spread the fake news also anticipates that Russian state media will pay attention to the scattered images and claim that their appearance confirms public skepticism about the Oxford University vaccine. The reports with some of the aforementioned images appeared on the Russian program “Vesti nedeli” in September.
This program is sometimes called the Analogue of BBC Two’s Newsnight. The campaign message echoes statements by senior Kremlin officials about a “monkey vaccine” that is supposedly completely different from the Russian human adenovirus-derived vaccine.
“It just came to our attention then. A survey conducted by the Royal College London and Ipsos Mori in August found that one in six respondents were convinced they would not be vaccinated against coronavirus or hardly would be. A recent survey in the United States found that only 70 percent agree to be vaccinated. However, about half of those surveyed want to wait until they are sure the vaccine is safe, “according to The Times article.
Analysts dealing with fake news and misinformation do not want to link the images directly to the Russian state, but they do know that Moscow tends to use social media messages whose origins are “difficult to detect.”
A spokesman for the Russian embassy said: “The assumption that Russia may carry out some kind of propaganda campaign against the AstraZeneca vaccine already seems to be an example of propaganda. It is clear that this is intended to discredit Russia’s efforts in fighting the pandemic, including Russia’s successful cooperation with the United Kingdom in this area. “
Andrew Pollard, a professor of pediatric infections and immunity at the University of Oxford and head of the vaccine research team at the University of Oxford, spoke on BBC Radio 4 about the dangers of false information.
“In my current context, in the current context, issues like the interventions that we may face in the future to help end the pandemic, be it new drugs, treatments or vaccines, touch on any false information and anything that harms dissemination. and perception and undermines confidence in the chosen direction of public health, can pose an extremely high risk ”, says the professor.
“Vaccines are an important cornerstone of public health, they are extremely important to children. Therefore, anyone (there are cases of this type in communities around the world) who asks for a broader look and understands that can be unsafe is without a doubt a threat to the health of children all over the world ”, explains A. Pollard.
He broke the myth of chimpanzees.
“The vaccine we are developing is very similar to many other vaccines we are currently developing, with the exception of the Russian vaccine. They all use the common cold virus, which affects a variety of species, both humans and chimpanzees.” Our organisms they respond to the virus in exactly the same way, whether it’s a human virus or a chimpanzee, they belong to the same family of viruses, “said the professor.
He added: “In fact, no chimpanzee is involved in the vaccine manufacturing process, as the process itself only involves the virus and not the animal that might be infected. The virus, whether it infects humans or chimpanzees, is used to extract genetic material from a coronavirus and use it as a vaccine, allowing the human immune system to develop an immune response. “
According to Pollard, it would be a “major failure” if conspiracy theories undermined confidence in the Oxford University vaccine.
Russian health authorities last week approved the Covid-19 vaccine, developed by a former biological weapons research laboratory, for public use. This is the second time the Kremlin has bypassed an accepted scientific protocol in an attempt to counter the pandemic, Bloomberg wrote.
On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin announced on television that a new vaccine had been registered at the Vector state virus and biotechnology center in Siberia.
“We will need to increase the production of the first and now the second vaccine, we must first supply our domestic market,” Putin said, adding that Russia will cooperate with foreign partners in vaccinating the population.
The Vector vaccine was registered before the third phase of the study was completed, two months after Putin announced the approval of Sputnik V as the world’s first coronavirus vaccine.
Still, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova says the vaccine is safe and will soon produce 60,000 doses. She told Putin that she had already tried the vaccine and did not experience any side effects.
All of this is happening at a time when Putin seeks to play a leadership role in the fight against the global pandemic, from which Russia has been particularly hard hit.
Sputnik V developers say more than 50 countries have already expressed interest in the vaccine and have ordered 1.2 billion doses since it was registered by Russian regulatory authorities in August.
With a second wave of coronavirus in Russia threatening to overwhelm hospitals, the Kremlin also needs the vaccine domestically, where a record number of infections is being battled in a bid to avoid quarantine, which has eroded the country’s economy. in the spring.
Russia has more than 1.3 million infections, the fourth highest in the world after the United States, India and Brazil.
Vector EpiVacCorona, like Sputnik V, has been tested on a limited number of people before it can be granted temporary registration. 100 volunteers participated in the first and second stages of the trial and all feel good, said Rinatas Maksiutovas, CEO of Vector, last week.
So far the review report reviewed by the reviewers does not contain any data. Russian authorities say the “conditional” registration is similar to other accelerated development programs in the West and China, which will increase vaccine production while trials are still ongoing.
However, scientists and drug companies argue that more research is needed to prove the safety and effectiveness of vaccines before they can be approved.
The United States is also trying to accelerate vaccine development after President Donald Trump allowed Operation Warp Speed in April to fund companies with federal resources.
The Novosibirsk lab Vector, which tried to turn smallpox into a biological weapon during the Soviet era, developed the vaccine using peptide antigens or synthetic virus fragments that trigger an immune response to Covid-19.
The Vector vaccine is one of several vaccines in the third phase of testing, and its strongest competitors are being developed by Moderna Inc., the University of Oxford in conjunction with AstraZeneca Plc and Pfizer Inc. with BioNTech SE.
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