Emergency use of Sputnik V authorized

The Drugs Controller General of India, or RDIF, has granted an emergency use authorization license to Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V, officials said on Tuesday. The decision came hours after an expert panel recommended the move. With this permission, Sputnik V is now the third vaccine to get an emergency authorization after the Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin. According to the

RDIF, the Russian vaccine has an efficacy grade of 91.6 percent and provides full protection against severe cases of COVID-19 as demonstrated by data published in The Lancet, a leading medical journal. More than 850 million doses of Sputnik V are going to be produced in India annually. India is in the grip of a second wave of COVID-19 pandemic and it is the second worst-hit country after the United States. India on Monday reported more than 161,000 new cases — the seventh-consecutive day that more than 100,000 infections have been recorded.