Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine is 95 percent effective based on its second interim analysis of clinical trial data, its manufacturer announced on Tuesday.
The vaccine would be administered in two doses and sold on international markets for less than $10 (around P500) but would be free for Russian citizens.
Sputnik V could be stored between two and eight degrees Celsius (between 35.6 and 46.4 degrees Fahrenheit), the developers said, instead of the temperatures below freezing required for some other COVID-19 vaccines.
According to Russia’s health ministry, the state-run Gamaleya research center, and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the vaccine’s effectiveness was based on preliminary data obtained 42 days after the first dose.
They said that Sputnik V had shown 91.4 percent effectiveness 28 days after the first dose, a figure based on 39 cases.
Forty-two days later, after a second dose, data showed “an efficacy of the vaccine above 95 percent.”
However, it did not indicate the number of coronavirus cases used to make the final calculation.
“The second analysis was conducted a week after volunteers got the second dose, meaning that their bodies have partially reacted to both doses,” Gamaleya’s director Alexander Gintsburg said in the statement.
Gintsburg added the center expects the efficacy rate to be “even higher” three weeks after the second dose.
Sputnik V 95% effective – Russia
The statement said that 22,000 volunteers had been injected with the first dose and more than 19,000 with both doses.
Meanwhile, Manila’s ambassador to Moscow, Carlos Sorreta, said yesterday that Russia could begin manufacturing its COVID-19 vaccine candidate intended for the Philippines as early as January 2021 if the country is prepared to accept them.
President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly said he preferred Russia’s Sputnik V and China’s Sinovac because other countries allegedly asked for advance payment.
The Department of Health earlier announced the government aims to initially give COVID-19 vaccine shots to around 50% to 60% of the Philippine population.
The government plans to buy 50 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. The initial batch of vaccines would be given to the poor, healthcare workers, security forces, and other government frontline workers.
However, Vergeire admitted that the vaccine’s cold storage and distribution cost could be more costly than the vaccine itself.