SPUTNIK VACCINE 92% EFFECTIVE: RUSSIA

— Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is 92% effective at protecting people from Covid-19 according to interim trial results, the country’s sovereign wealth fund said on Wednesday, as Moscow rushes to keep pace with Western drugmakers in the race for a shot.

The initial results are only the second to be published from a late-stage human trial in the global effort to produce vaccines that could halt a pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people and ravaged the world economy.

Russia registered its Covid-19 vaccine for public use in August, the first country to do so, though the approval came before the start of the largescale trial in September.

“We are showing, based on the data, that we have a very effective vaccine,” said RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev, adding that it was the sort of news that the vaccine’s developers would talk about one day with their grandchildren.

The interim results are based on data from the first 16,000 trial participants to receive both shots of the two-dose vaccine, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which has been backing the vaccine and marketing it globally, said.

The interim analysis was conducted after 20 participants in the trial developed Covid-19 and examined how many had received the vaccine versus a placebo.

That is significantly lower than the 94 infections in the trial of a vaccine being developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech. To confirm the efficacy rate, Pfizer said it would continue its trial until there were 164 Covid-19 cases. —