A Russian vaccine

In the 2011 film Contagion, a scientist inoculates herself with a vaccine against a deadly virus within a week or two of its being developed, thereby saving the world. Would that reality could replicate fiction. The chances of a vaccine being ready this year are slim. Conceivably, there may never be one, as is the case with many viruses, from the common cold to HIV. But from Russia comes hope, or so we are led to believe. Vladimir Putin yesterday announced that the country’s Gamaleya Research Institute had produced a vaccine that had been approved for use, the first in the world. It has even been given to Mr Putin’s own daughter to show his faith in the breakthrough.

Understandably, there is scepticism elsewhere. The Gameleya Institute is a world-renowned body that has a good track record for developing vaccines, including one for yellow fever. The epidemiology it is using is similar to that at Oxford University, where scientists are also said to be close to success. But the requisite protocols for determining whether the Russian vaccine is both safe and effective do not yet appear to have been carried out. The numbers involved in clinical trials are also low, which makes efficacy hard to establish.

Furthermore, the fact that the Russians have called the vaccine Sputnik 5 after the Soviet satellite that stole a march on the Americans in the Sixties by sending animals into space and returning them to Earth indicates a political agenda. The Sputniks galvanised the Americans into developing the Apollo Moon-landing programme. Perhaps President Putin’s braggadocio will spur the rest of the world into getting their vaccines up and running just as quickly. They will be needed before the winter sets in.