Russians publish vaccine results
A team of Russian scientists on Friday published the first report on their COVID-19 vaccine, which had been roundly criticized because of President Vladimir Putin’s decision last month to approve it before clinical trials had proved it safe and effective.
In a small group of volunteers, the scientists found that the vaccine produced a modest level of antibodies against the coronavirus, while causing only mild side effects. The research has not yet shown, however, whether people who are vaccinated are less likely to become infected than those who are not.
In August, Putin announced with great fanfare that the vaccine — called Sputnik V — “works effectively enough” to be approved.
But vaccine developers denounced the decision, observing that no data had been published on the vaccine. In addition, the critics pointed out, the Russian scientists had yet to run a large trial of tens of thousands of people, which is required to demonstrate that a vaccine works.
The new paper, published in the Lancet, contains the first batch of public data from Sputnik V’s clinical trials.
“The science looks like it was done impeccably well,” said Naor Bar-Zeev of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who is the co-author of a commentary on the new paper.
Still, he cautioned that no one will know if Sputnik V is safe and effective until the larger trials are completed.
Researchers at the Gamaleya Research Institute in Moscow used a design for the vaccine that they had previously developed and tested for MERS, a disease caused by another coronavirus.
The Sputnik V vaccine stimulates the immune system by coaxing a person’s cells to make a protein normally found on the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The researchers loaded the gene for this viral protein into a second virus, called an adenovirus.
When injected into the arm, the adenovirus slips into muscle cells. It has been genetically engineered so that it cannot make copies of itself or cause illness. But once it delivers the coronavirus gene into a cell, the cell starts making the protein.
Similar adenovirus-based vaccines also are being tested by several other teams, including AstraZeneca, CanSinoBio and Johnson & Johnson.
The trial they ran on human volunteers was small: Only 40 volunteers received the full vaccine with both kinds of adenoviruses. No one received a placebo.