After an initial dose of skepticism about the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, Dr. Anthony Fauci now admits that data on the Sputnik V jab lead him to believe it is “quite effective.”
“I took a look at some of the reports. It looks pretty good, “Fauci told Hugh Hewitt on Monday, Bloomberg News reported.
In February, a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet found that Sputnik V is about 91% effective and appears to prevent serious cases of infection.
Concerns about the safety of two-dose inoculation mounted after Russia approved the jab in August 2020 – ahead of its Western competitors and before the start of large-scale clinical trials.
At the time, President Vladimir Putin said that one of his daughters had been vaccinated with it, although it was tested on only a few dozen people.
But Fauci had expressed skepticism about the Russian shooting.
“I hope the Russians have proven that the vaccine is safe and effective,” Fauci told ABC News at the time. “I seriously doubt they did that.”
In January, the US Department of Health and Human Services said its Office of Global Affairs had tried to persuade Brazil not to allow Sputnik V – accusing Moscow of seeking to expand its influence in America “to the detriment of US security and safety”. according to Bloomberg.
In the new interview, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief adviser to President Biden, said he did not have the opportunity to review a Chinese vaccine, but that “it could be good.”
“But I think the Russian one is quite effective,” he said.
The Russian vaccine is similar to that developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
Both use a modified version of the common cold-causing adenovirus to carry coronavirus spike protein genes to cause the body to react to a COVID-19 infection.
But unlike the AstraZeneca vaccine, the Russian version uses a slightly different adenovirus for the second booster vaccine.
On Monday, AstraZeneca announced study data from a US vaccine study showing that it is 79% effective.
He said his experts also did not identify vaccine-related safety issues, including a blood clot rarely identified in Europe.
Experts did not find an increased risk of clots among the more than 20,000 people who received at least one dose of the AstraZeneca shot.