Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during a cabinet meeting via video conference.
Highlight
- Putin did not have any unpleasant effects after taking the nasal vaccine.
- Russia has been swept away by its highest ever COVID-19 surge.
- The surge came amid low vaccination rates and people’s lax attitude towards taking precautions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he has received an experimental nasal vaccine against the coronavirus, three days after receiving his booster shot, as Russia faces its worst surge of infections and deaths since the pandemic began. Used to be. Putin was vaccinated with Russia’s domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, in the spring.
On Sunday, he said he had received a booster shot of Sputnik Lite, a one-dose version of the jab, and said he would like to participate in testing a nasal version of the Sputnik V.
Denis Logunov, deputy director of Russia’s state-funded Gamalya Center that developed Sputnik V, told Putin on Sunday that the nasal vaccine has yet to undergo clinical studies and is currently being used “off” on members of the center’s staff. -label mostly” being tested.
According to established scientific protocols, the vaccine must go through several testing phases, involving thousands of people, to establish that it is safe and effective to use.
Last month, Russia’s health ministry granted a regulatory approval for initial trials of the nasal form of Sputnik V among 500 volunteers, but it was not immediately clear whether this had already begun.
Putin told a government meeting on Wednesday that “just six months after vaccination, my protective (antibody) titers have dropped, and experts have recommended the process of vaccination, which I did.”
He said that he did not experience any unpleasant effects after taking the nasal vaccine. In recent weeks, Russia has been swept away by its highest COVID-19 surge, with officials regularly reporting record-high numbers of new infections and deaths.
The surge came amid low vaccination rates and people’s lax attitude towards taking precautions. Less than 40 percent of Russia’s nearly 146 million people have been fully vaccinated, even though the country approved a home-grown COVID-19 vaccine months before most of the world. Russians are currently offered four home-grown vaccines, with Sputnik V and Sputnik Lite dominating the market.
Data on the efficacy of two others, Epivaccorona and Kovivac, have yet to be released; Like Sputnik V, these two shots have been given regulatory approval before completing the late-stage trials needed to establish their effectiveness in preventing disease.
Russia’s health ministry is expected to approve a version of Sputnik V for adolescents aged 12 to 17 on Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova told Putin during a government meeting.
According to Russia’s State Registry of Clinical Trials, the jab, which is a small dose of Sputnik V for short, was being tested on more than 3,600 volunteers. No data has yet been released on its efficacy.
Russia’s state coronavirus task force on Wednesday reported 33,558 new infections and 1,240 deaths. Golikova called the daily death toll “dramatic”, noting that the contagion trend in the country has been declining.
In total, the task force has reported more than 9.4 million confirmed infections and more than 267,000 COVID-19 deaths, the highest death toll in Europe to date. Some experts believe the true figure is even higher.
The report from Rosstat, Russia’s statistical service, which retrospectively tallied deaths linked to the coronavirus, reveals a much higher death rate. They say 462,000 people died with COVID-19 between April 2020 and September this year.
Russian officials have said the task force only includes deaths for which COVID-19 was the main cause, and uses data from medical facilities. Rosstat uses broad criteria for counting virus-related deaths and takes its numbers from civil registry offices, one death being finalized.
Read also: Sputnik Lite COVID Vaccine to be launched in India by December
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