In August last year, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced that the country had authorized the use of the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine even before completing safety trials, which sparked skepticism. Now, Putin can reap diplomatic dividends as Russia celebrates its greatest scientific breakthrough since the Soviet era.
Countries line up to receive Sputnik V after the peer-reviewed results published in the medical journal The Lancet show that the Russian vaccine protects against coronavirus as well as vaccines in the US and Europe, and far more effectively than vaccines. Chinese rivals.
At least 20 countries have approved the vaccine, including Hungary, a member of the European Union, while important markets like Brazil and India are close to authorizing the immunizer. Now Russia is eyeing the EU market, while the bloc faces obstacles in its vaccination program due to a lack of vaccines.
In the global battle to defeat a pandemic that killed 2.3 million people in just over a year, the race for vaccines has taken on geopolitical importance with governments trying to overcome the enormous social and economic damage caused by restrictions imposed to limit the spread of the vaccine. virus. This gives Russia an advantage as one of the few countries where scientists have produced an effective vaccine.
The decision to call the Sputnik V vaccine, the name of the world’s first satellite whose launch in 1957 gave the Soviet Union a great triumph against the United States to start the space race, highlighted the scale of importance that the Moscow government attached to the done. The results of the final trials with 20,000 participants reviewed at The Lancet showed that the vaccine has an efficacy rate of 91.6%.
“This is a turning point for us,” said Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian sovereign wealth fund (RDIF), who supported the development of Sputnik V and is responsible for international implementation.
Production restrictions are the biggest challenge faced by all manufacturers, as global demand far outstrips supply. Russia, which promised free vaccines for the population of 146 million, started production last year and the vaccine is currently being manufactured in countries like India, South Korea and Brazil.
Despite Russia’s success, domestic demand remains lukewarm until now, partly due to the mistrust of the population. Putin, 68, fueled skepticism in December when he said he was waiting for the vaccine to be approved for people his age.
Putin has not yet said whether he has been vaccinated, but other nations do not want to wait for an answer. After announcing that he had tested positive for Covid-19, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on January 25 that he had thanked Putin for promising 24 million doses of Sputnik V over the next two months. Three days later, Bolivia’s president, Luis Arce, personally received a parcel at La Paz airport.
European approval could take several months due to the need to send detailed data, The Lancet editor-in-chief Richard Horton said in an interview with Bloomberg. “I really think the Russian vaccine will be available,” but “not quickly,” he said.
Although Russia expects the vaccine to be available to 700 million people this year, it faces production constraints. “We have to be realistic. Due to our other commitments, we will not be able to supply Europe before May, except for Hungary,” said RDIF’s Dmitriev.
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