Russia begins administering new viral vaccine to volunteers in Moscow

MOSCOW – Russia on Wednesday began inoculating volunteers in Moscow with the country’s new coronavirus vaccine, the capital’s deputy mayor said.

Russia announced last month that its vaccine, named “Sputnik V” in honor of the Soviet-era satellite that was the first to be launched into space in 1957, had already received approval.

“The first participants have already been vaccinated in clinics in the capital,” Deputy Mayor Anastasia Rakova, head of social development, said in a statement.

The vaccine project is funded by Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Russian Fund for Direct Investment.

The vaccine was developed by the Gamaleya research institute in Moscow in coordination with the Russian defense ministry.

High-profile Russians have already been vaccinated, including the daughter of President Vladimir Putin, nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Wednesday that the president would “inform him himself” if he decided to get vaccinated.

The Moscow city government website said that 40,000 people in the capital can receive the vaccine, administered in 2 doses 21 days apart.

The site says they are participating in a “post-registration study” of the vaccine.

Volunteers must not have had COVID-19 or recent contact with any sick person and must not be pregnant or trying to have a baby.

Rakova said that more than 35,000 Muscovites had already come online.

The Moscow City website says volunteers will be closely monitored through a specially created app.

Russia will also make the vaccine available shortly to people from high-risk groups: doctors and teachers, who will receive it on a voluntary basis and will also be monitored.

Russia expressed concern among Western scientists by announcing that the vaccine had received approval before full clinical trials were completed.

Patients in the first trials involving 76 people developed antibodies, according to research published in the medical journal The Lancet last week, while experts said the trials were too small to prove safety and efficacy.

The phase 3 trials, which the Health Ministry said began Wednesday, are more rigorous and include some volunteers receiving a placebo. These will participate in several countries, according to the vaccine website.

Russia has said it is ready to make 500 million doses of vaccine a year.

The country has confirmed more than 1 million cases of coronavirus and 18,305 people have died.

Moscow’s infection rate has been relatively stable in recent months with 642 new cases confirmed on Wednesday.