Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is 91.6 percent effective against symptomatic COVID-19, according to results published in The Lancet that independent experts say allays transparency concerns over the shot, which Moscow is already rolling out.
Sputnik V — named after the Soviet-era satellite — was approved in Russia months before results from its final-stage clinical trials were published, leading to skepticism from experts.
But the new analysis of data from 20,000 participants in Phase 3 trials suggests that the two-dose vaccination offers more than 90 percent efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19.
“The development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticized for unseemly haste, corner cutting, and an absence of transparency,” says an independent Lancet commentary by Ian Jones of the University of Reading and Polly Roy of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“But the outcome reported here is clear and the scientific principle of vaccination is demonstrated, which means another vaccine can now join the fight to reduce the incidence of Covid-19.”
The results suggest Sputnik V is among the top-performing vaccines, along with the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna jabs that also reported more than 90 percent efficacy.
Pre-empting the results of the phase 3 trials, Russia has already launched a mass inoculation campaign for citizens 18 and older.
A Russian medical worker, right, administers a shot of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to a patient in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020 (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)
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