Indian Embassy In Russia In Touch With Developer Of Its Covid-19 Vaccine Sputnik V: Report

After Russia announced it has developed the world's first vaccine against Covid-19, the Indian Embassy in Moscow has been in touch with the Russian Medical Research Institute, as per an Indian Express report citing government sources.

“The Indian Mission is engaging separately with the Russian side through our embassy in Moscow. We are now awaiting the safety and efficacy data of this vaccine for Covid-19,” a source said.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that country's Ministry of Health green-lighted the Sputnik V vaccine developed by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology.

Russia’s vaccine Sputnik V (Gam-COVID-Vac Lyo) is based on the DNA of a SARS-CoV-2 type adenovirus, a common cold virus. The vaccine uses the weakened virus to deliver small parts of a pathogen and stimulate an immune response. Russia has so far made public the results of phase-I of the clinical trials involving 76 volunteers, with majority recruited from the military. Half of the participants were injected with a vaccine in liquid form and the other half with a vaccine that came as soluble powder.

It was also reported earlier that the third stage of the research on the world's first registered vaccine against the novel coronavirus, called Sputnik V, may begin in 7-10 days.

“Phase 3 clinical trial involving more than 2,000 people in Russia, a number of Middle Eastern (UAE and Saudi Arabia), and Latin American countries (Brazil and Mexico) will start on August 12”, the official Sputnik V website, run by the Russian sovereign wealth fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) says.