A new study says Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine recorded success
in its early clinical trials.
The vaccine is named “Sputnik V” for foreign markets — a
reference to the world’s first artificial satellite launched by the Soviets on
October 4, 1957.
President Vladimir Putin had earlier announced the country’s
approval for the vaccine, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, saying his
daughter has been vaccinated.
But the vaccine has been received with cautious optimism across the world.
While some health experts say Russia skipped the third and
most crucial stage of testing the drug before declaring it fit for human use,
the country insists that it followed due health protocol.
The World Health Organisation, which asked Russia to follow
established guidelines and go “through all the stages” necessary to develop a
safe vaccine, is yet to approve any vaccine for the treatment and prevention of
COVID-19.
In a study published by Lancet, a medical journal, on Friday, researchers said Sputnik V recorded early success in its trials.
The study noted that Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine developed antibodies with “no serious adverse events”.
In the study, the researchers identified two small trials,
each involving 38 healthy adults aged between 18 and 60, who were given a
two-part immunisation.
Each participant received a dose of the first part of the
vaccine and a booster with the second part, which was given after 21 days.
It noted that the participants were monitored for a period
of 42 days and it was observed that they all developed antibodies within the
first three weeks.
The new paper reports the findings of two open-label, non-randomised phase 1/2 trials looking at a frozen formulation and a freeze-dried formulation of a two-part #COVID19 vaccine (2/8) pic.twitter.com/fcYqgpjfsl
— The Lancet (@TheLancet) September 4, 2020
According to the study, the 76 participants will be
monitored up to 180 days while a more rigorous third phase clinical trial is
underway with the involvement of 40,000 volunteers from different age and risk
groups.
It concluded that the data showed that the vaccine is “safe,
well-tolerated, and does not cause serious adverse events in healthy adult
volunteers.”
But experts have criticised the study over low number of
participants used.
Naor Bar-Zeev of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, who was not involved in the study, said the research was “encouraging
but small”.
“Showing safety will be crucial with Covid-19 vaccines, not
only for vaccine acceptance but also for trust in vaccination broadly,” he said
in a commentary in the Lancet.
“Since vaccines are given to healthy people and, during the
COVID-19 pandemic, potentially to everyone after approval following phase 3
trials, safety is paramount.”
The WHO draft on vaccines shows that six of the 26
candidates in clinical trials have got to the third phase of the vaccine trial.
Part of the top candidates include the University of
Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer candidates.
Meanwhile, the federal government has received samples of
Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Alexey Shebarshin, Russia ambassador to Nigeria, delivered
samples of the vaccine to Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, at his office in
Abuja on Friday.
There is a race among leading countries to produce a vaccine
for COVID-19.
The likeliest time for a vaccine against the disease has been projected to be the third quarter of 2021.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everydayAdvertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com