Russia’s previously despised vaccine is now the favorite in the fight against the pandemic

President Vladimir Putin’s announcement in August that Russia had authorized the use of the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine even before it completed safety testing sparked skepticism around the world.

Now it can reap diplomatic dividends as Russia enjoys arguably its greatest scientific advance since the Soviet era.

Countries are lining up for Sputnik V supply after peer-reviewed results published in The lancet This week’s medical journal showed that the Russian vaccine protects against the deadly virus just as well as American and European vaccines, and much more effectively than its Chinese rivals.

At least 20 countries have approved the use of inoculation, including Hungary, a member state of the European Union, while key markets such as Brazil and India are close to authorizing it. Now Russia is setting its sights on the prized EU market as the bloc struggles with its vaccination program amid supply shortages.

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In the global battle to defeat a pandemic that claimed 2.3 million lives in just over a year, the race for vaccines has taken on geopolitical significance as governments seek to escape the enormous social and economic damage caused by the Tax closures imposed to limit the spread of the virus. That gives Russia an advantage as one of the few countries where scientists have produced an effective defense.

His decision to name Sputnik V after the world’s first satellite whose launch in 1957 gave the Soviet Union an impressive victory over the United States to start the space race only underscored the scale of importance Moscow attached to the achievement. Results from late stage trials of 20,000 participants reviewed in The lancet showed that the vaccine has a 91.6 percent success rate.

“This is a watershed moment for us,” Kirill Dmitriev, executive director of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund, which supported the development of Sputnik V and is in charge of its international implementation, said in an interview.

While it is too early to assess Putin’s political gains, Russia is already capitalizing on much of the vaccine’s soft power impact on its image after years of international condemnation for electoral meddling and the targets of political opponents in the country and abroad. State television reports extensively on deliveries to other nations.

Sputnik’s success will not change hostility toward Putin among Western governments, although it could strengthen Russia’s geopolitical influence in regions such as Latin America, according to Oksana Antonenko, director of consultancy Control Risks.

“With this vaccine, it has been shown that it is capable of producing something new that is in demand all over the world,” he said.

Production constraints are the biggest challenge facing all manufacturers as global demand far exceeds supply. Russia, which promised free vaccines for its 146 million people, began producing the vaccine last year and the vaccine is currently being manufactured in countries such as India, South Korea and Brazil.

This week, a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged, signing a deal to produce Sputnik V in Turkey, even as the nation has deals to buy 50 million doses of China’s Sinovac Biotech CoronaVac vaccine and 4, 5 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech. Shooting.

Despite Russia’s success, domestic demand remains tepid so far, fueled by public suspicion from authorities. Putin, 68, fueled skepticism in December when he said he was waiting to receive the vaccine until it was approved for people his age.

He has not yet said if he has been vaccinated, but other nations are not waiting to find out. The day after announcing that he had contracted Covid-19, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on January 25 that he had thanked a “genuinely affectionate” Putin for promising 24 million doses of Sputnik V in the next two months. Three days later, Bolivian President Luis Arce personally received a lot at the La Paz airport.

Latin America is proving to be a fertile territory. Argentina, which has struggled to obtain vaccine supplies, began its mass inoculation program after receiving more than half a million doses of Sputnik V in January. It was joined by Nicaragua, Paraguay and Venezuela. In Brazil, the region’s largest market, a decision announced on February 3 to remove the requirement for phase three testing for emergency use may speed up approval.

Guinea became the first African nation to begin dispensing Sputnik V in December, with President Alpha Conde, a friend of Moscow, and several ministers taking the vaccine. It expects to receive 1.6 million doses this year and is also in talks to purchase Chinese vaccines, along with the injection from AstraZeneca Plc. Zimbabwe, the Central African Republic and the Ivory Coast are among other potential clients for Russia.

“We are not in a position where we can say no to any vaccine. We have opted for the Pfizer vaccine, but we are also looking for other vaccines, ”said Professor Joseph Benie, director of the National Institute of Public Hygiene in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. “There is an urgency now to start vaccinating.”

Unlike the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, Sputnik V can be stored in a refrigerator rather than a freezer, making it easy to transport and distribute in poorer and warmer countries. Around $ 20 for a two-shot vaccine, it’s also cheaper than most Western alternatives. Although more expensive than AstraZeneca, the Russian inoculation has shown greater efficacy than the UK vaccine.

For some nations like Iran, which received the first batch of 2 million doses promised this week, Russia offers a more acceptable political alternative than Western suppliers. But Russia is also dabbling in countries like the United Arab Emirates, which is traditionally close to the US, and has approved the use of Sputnik V.

China, whose vaccines are as low as 50 percent effective in the case of Sinovac Biotech, maintains the lead in Asia. Only a handful of countries have opted for Sputnik V, including the Philippines, which is in talks for 25 million doses.

Chinese developers can now partner with Russia. The RDIF has reached a preliminary agreement to test a combined regimen of injections of Sputnik V and CanSino Biologics from China to increase effectiveness against Covid-19, people with knowledge of the matter said on Friday.

In what could represent the Kremlin’s biggest potential breakthrough, Russia has asked European regulators to examine a Sputnik V authorization request after Germany promised to help speed up the process. With top EU officials still upset over the slow launch of the vaccine, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday that the Russian injection could be used to protect people in the 27-member bloc as long as it is approved by the European Medicines Agency.

Hungary has already granted emergency approval, signing a deal for 2 million doses of Sputnik V with the first 40,000 injections administered on Tuesday. “The vaccine cannot be a political issue,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on January 29. “You can only choose between Western and Eastern vaccines when you have enough.”

European approval can take several months due to the need to submit detailed data. The lancet Editor-in-chief Richard Horton told Bloomberg: “I think this Russian vaccine will be available, [but] not fast, ”he said.

While Russia says it expects the vaccine to be available to 700 million people this year, it faces bottlenecks in production. “We have to be realistic. Given our other commitments, we will not be able to supply Europe before May, except Hungary,” said RDIF’s Dmitriev.

Still, the vaccine is paying Putin dividends. Even when he visited Moscow on Friday to confront Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell took time to congratulate Russia on the development of the Sputnik V.

“This is good news for all humanity,” Borrell said. “It means that we will have more tools to face the pandemic.”