While the German-American alliance, BioNTech and Pfizer, announced on Monday, November 9 the effectiveness of its vaccine at 90%, Russia is responding with its Sputnik V vaccine.
In a press release Wednesday, November 11, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said its vaccine is 92 percent effective in protecting people against COVID-19, according to interim trial results.
Russia’s announcement follows quickly results released Monday by Pfizer and BioNTech, which said their vaccine was also 90% effective. This revives competition between laboratories for the marketing of the first vaccine protecting against the coronavirus.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 47 “vaccine candidates” are currently at the stage of clinical trials on humans. Among them, 10 vaccines are currently in the third and final phase (phase 3) across the world . Perhaps the most advanced laboratories for vaccine production are the Gamaleya Institute of Russia and the American-German duo, Pfizer-BioNTech.
Reacting to the marketing of the vaccine against COVID-19, Russian President Vladimir Putin was formal, his country intends to start mass vaccinations by the end of 2020. “Studies have already shown and confirmed that, on the one hand, these vaccines are safe and have no serious side effects after use, and on the other hand, they are all effective, ”said Putin, quoted by the RIA news agency.
For its part, RDIF said that no serious side effects have been reported during the Phase III Sputnik V trial so far, which is the final phase of large-scale testing of dozens of people. thousands of volunteers from several continents.
At this stage, there are 10 laboratories including Moderna (United States), CanSino Biologics / Beijing Institute of biotechnology (China), and Gamaleya Research Institute (Russia) .As a reminder, the UN agency currently lists 155 vaccine projects in phase pre-clinical.