“Sputnik V”, the Russian vaccine against coronavirus that does not convince even in Russia

While coronavirus vaccines developed in the West are received with emotion and enthusiasm, found the Russian version a disparate answer. Some clinics in Moscow that offer it to medical staff and teachers, the first on the list, remain naked, according to reports.

Kremlin members and the state-controlled media presented the Sputnik vaccine as. a great landmark when it was approved on August 11th. But among Russians, hopes have been mixed that the drug will change the wave of the coronavirus crisis objections and skepticism, reflecting concerns about how accelerated launch of the vaccine while studies were still ongoing to ensure its effectiveness and safety.

Russia has been criticized internationally for authorizing a vaccine that It’s not over advanced studies among tens of thousands of people, and experts inside and outside the country warned against its widespread use until the completion of studies.

Despite these warnings, authorities began offering them to high-risk groups as front-line medical staff a few weeks after the drug was authorized. Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Institute that developed the vaccine, said last week that over 150,000 The Russians had received it.

One of them was Dr. Alexander Zatsepin, a specialist in intensive care in Voronezh, a town 500 kilometers south of Moscow, who was vaccinated in October.

“We have been working with COVID-19 patients since March, and every day when we get home, we worry about infecting our family members. So, when an opportunity arose to protect me and them, I thought I should take advantage of it. ” he showed.

“The vaccine is several months old (…) The long-term effects are unknown, its effectiveness has not been proven”

Yekaterina Kasyanova

Russian doctor of the Alliance of Physicians Union

However, Zatsepin said he is still taking precautions against the contagion as vaccine efficacy studies are still pending. They’re not done.

“Yet there is no absolute trust”, said.

After Britain announced on December 2 that it had authorized a vaccine developed by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech, Russian President Vladimir Putin told authorities he would launch a large-scale vaccination campaign, showing Moscow’s interest. because he was at the forefront of the fight against the pandemic.

Russia authorized its vaccine after testing it only in a few dozen people, and presented it as the “first in the world” to be approved.

Each ampoule or vial contains five doses. Once thawed, they should be administered within two hours or discarded.

In play there something else than national pride. Russia has registered more than 2.7 million COVID-19 cases and more than 48,000 deaths and wants to save its economy another harmful quarantine.

On December 2, Putin scored a goal of approx two million doses in the following days. Despite the limited supply for a country in 146 million inhabitants, Moscow immediately expanded the list of people who could receive it. vaccine it’s free for any worker of educational or health institutions, both state and private, as well as social and municipal workers, retail workers and services and artists.

For poor countries

He said the European Medicines Agency not receiving a request manufacturers to apply for authorization in the European Union, but some data have been shared with the World Health Organization. The UN agency does not usually authorize vaccines on its own and awaits the verdict of regulatory agencies. According to the press, the use of the Russian vaccine is being considered in a global project led by the WHO to distribute vaccines against COVID-19 to the poorest countries.

Unlike the United Kingdom, where the elderly are the first to be vaccinated, Sputnik V He has priority for people aged between 18 and 60 without chronic diseases and are not pregnant or breastfeeding.

Its developers said the study data suggest the drug has 91% efficiency, a finding based on 78 infections in almost 23,000 participants. These are much less positive than those accumulated by Western pharmaceutical companies in their latest studies before analyzing the effectiveness of their vaccine candidates. They have not been published important dates from the Russian studio as well demographic profile of the participants.

Some experts say that this success rate produces optimism, but that public trust it could be a problem.

“I’m not so worried that Sputnik V is unsafe or less effective than we need to be,” said Judy Twigg, a political science professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and a global health specialist. “I am worried that people in Russia will be willing to wear it. “

A survey conducted in October by the Levada Center, Russia’s largest independent poll, showed this 59% of Russians He was unwilling to get vaccinated even though it was free.

Denis Volkov, sociologist and deputy director of the Levada Center, said respondents cited unfinished clinical trials, noting that the vaccine was “half cooked” and they were suspicious of claims that Russia was the first country in the world to have a vaccine, while others continued to work on their own.

Some medical workers and professors interviewed by The Associated Press expressed their views your skepticism by vaccine because the tests have not been completed.

Dr. Yekaterina Kasyanova, from the Kemorovo region of Siberia, said this it did not seem reliable enough and he had advised his mother, a teacher, not to wear it either.

“The vaccine is a few months old (…) The effects are unknown in the long run, its effectiveness has not been proven, “he said.

For other health workers, the decision to vaccinate was easy.

“People die here every day. Every day we remove corpses. What is there to think about?” Said Dr. Marina Pecherkina, an infectious disease specialist in the eastern city of Vladivostok. He was vaccinated in October because he works daily with coronavirus patients.

The Mayor of Moscow, Serghei Sobyanin, said more than 6,000 people received the injections in the first five days of vaccination, which began on December 5th.

But some media reports in the early days of the Moscow campaign they showed empty clinics and health workers who give vaccines to anyone who comes. In some cases, this is because the medicine must be kept at minus 18 degrees Celsius (0.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and each ampoule contains five doses. Once thawed, should be administered within two hours or discarded.

Development outside Moscow and its surroundings seemed to disappear much slower. Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said all regions began the process on December 15.

According to the press, it could exist Problems to scale the production and distribution of medicines. Sputnik V uses two adenovirus vectors for the system two doses, which complicates production. In addition, low temperature requirements for storage and transport complicates their distribution for the huge country.

There were also mixed messages about whether patients may consume alcohol. Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said vaccinated people should avoid drinking three days before and after of injections.

Several medical workers in Siberia who were vaccinated later reported after contracting the virusBut health officials said he did not have enough time to develop antibodies.

The author is a journalist for the Associated Press

Vladimir Kondrashov and Anatoly Kozlov in Moscow and Tatyana Salimova in Tomsk contributed to this report.

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