Russian vaccine passes early trials

Russia’s most advanced vaccine candidate has successfully passed its early stages of clinical trials, according to preliminary results.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in a teleconference with the Moscow Mayor at Novo-Ogaryovo state residence on Friday. Picture: AFP

Russia’s most advanced vaccine candidate has successfully passed its early stages of clinical trials, according to preliminary results.

Initial findings from a small study of 76 people showed that there were no severe side effects and the vaccine elicited an antibody response.

Vladimir Putin has promised to roll out the use of the country’s “Sputnik V” vaccine before any other country, claiming it as a victory in a global race to escape the pandemic.

Three weeks ago Mr Putin told a government meeting, when announcing the country was going to engage in mass vaccination: “This morning, for the first time in the world, a vaccine against the new coronavirus was registered.”

He added, “I know that it is quite effective, that it gives sustainable immunity.” At the time there was no published evidence of its efficacy.

The latest results, published in The Lancet, confirm that like several other vaccine candidates the Russian offering has cleared the early hurdles of human trials. The vaccine takes an approach similar to that used by the team at Oxford University, using a benign virus known as an adenovirus to transport coronavirus proteins into the body.

As with Oxford’s candidate, those injected with it made antibodies that attacked the coronavirus. However, it has yet to be shown that they are effective protection.

Scientists cautioned that the findings were far from confirmation that it worked or was safe. Other vaccines that reached a similar stage earlier, among them the Oxford vaccine, are now entering mass trials involving thousands of people.

It is still not yet clear whether, despite the promises of the Kremlin, Russia’s wider rollout will in effect be a large trial - with some receiving a placebo and the results carefully monitored - or whether it will genuinely be a standard vaccination programme. Researchers said that it would be a mistake to cut corners.

Eleanor Riley, from the University of Edinburgh, said: “A vaccine should not be used to short cut the implementation of public health interventions that are already known to be safe and effective until the vaccine itself has been shown to be safe and effective.”

She said a complication was that most people in the trial were in their 20s and 30s, adding: “Populations at highest risk of severe disease and death from Covid-19 - the elderly and those with underlying health conditions - are also those least likely to respond effectively to the vaccine and any adverse effects associated with vaccination may also be more likely in these populations.”

The Times