COVID-19 vaccine: Russia's Sputnik V more than 90% effective, says Health Ministry

Russia's COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V is over 90 per cent effective, according to the Health Ministry. The Health Ministry cited data collected from public vaccinations rather than that of an ongoing trial.

The comments from Russian health ministry followed the announcement by Pfizer and BioNTech, who also claimed that their vaccine candidate was more than 90 per cent effective.

Oksana Drapkina, director of a research institute under the Russian health ministry said, "We are responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of the Sputnik V vaccine among citizens who have received it as part of the mass vaccination programme." Drapkina further added that the efficacy of the vaccine was more than 90 per cent.

Sputnik V vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology was registered by the Russian Health Ministry and went onto become the world's first registered COVID-19 vaccine based on the human adenoviral platform.

It ranks among the top 10 candidates that are approaching end of clinical trials and beginning of the mass production on the World Health Organisation's list as of now. Russia has also submitted the applications to the WHO for faster registration and prequalification of Sputnik V. The ongoing trial in Russia, after WHO registrations, involves 40,000 volunteers. Besides this, trials for Sputnik V have been announced in UAE, Venezuela, India and Belarus.

As COVID-19 cases continue to increase across the world, India continues to remain the second most affected nation with a total of 85, 53,657 cases and 5,09,673 recoveries.

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