Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the registration of Russian vaccine for coronavirus. He also said that his daughter had already taken it.
“As far as I know, a vaccine against a new coronavirus infection has been registered this morning, for the first time in the world,” he said at a meeting with government officials, RIA Novosti reported.
“Although I know that it works quite effectively, it forms a stable immunity and, I repeat, has passed all the necessary checks,” Putin said.
The clinical trials of this Russian vaccine only took less than two months to finish and phase three trials will start on Wednesday, despite the vaccine being registered already. Countries including the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia are participants in those trials.
However, there is no available data published by the researchers. The long-term effects and safety of this Russian vaccine remain uncertain.
Putin claimed that one of his daughters already took the vaccine, saying, “In this sense, she took part in the experiment.”
Skepticism
The World Health Organization said it is in “close contact” with Russian health officials about the “possible pre-qualification process for a Covid-19 candidate vaccine which requires rigorous review,” according to a Reuters report that cites a WHO spokesman.
The agency reported in July that there were 26 candidate vaccines in the clinical evaluation stage. One of these was the one registered in Russia that was created by the Gamaleya Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology.
Russia stressed that it is not a part of “arms race” to come up with a vaccine. The country reiterates its intention to cooperate with other countries. However, there is international skepticism over the Russian vaccine. White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, for instance, did not express full confidence in the approaches to testing in Russia and China.
Vaccine distribution
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, announced that it is supporting the production of the vaccine. It will be called ‘Sputnik V’ in foreign markets. According to RDIF, there had been “considerable interest” from other countries.
“We have received preliminary applications for over 1 billion doses of the vaccine from 20 countries. Along with our foreign partners, we are already prepared to manufacture over 500 million doses of vaccine per year in five countries, and the plan is to ramp-up production capacity even higher,” the wealth fund said in a statement.
Full-scale production of the vaccine will start in September, it added
Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of RDIF, responding to international skepticism over the vaccine, saying the root of the bias against the Russian vaccine was politically motivated.
″(The) Russian vaccine has been questioned, and will be questioned, regardless of anything we do,” Dmitriev said.
“We know that before any major announcements already there were accusations that the Russian vaccine may have been stolen, which is completely false, and now we publish on the Sputnik.com site all the research dating back to six years ago and how the vaccine was created.”
