Sputnik V developer calls for mandatory vaccines in Russia

THE developer of Russia’s coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V has said Moscow should make jabs mandatory as inoculation rates remain low despite record deaths and campaigning by authorities.

His call came as Russia reported a record 1 239 Covid deaths in a single day yesterday.

Only 34% of the country is fully vaccinated, even though Sputnik V – the world’s first Covid vaccine – has been widely available since December last year.

“Vaccinations should be mandatory,” Alexander Gintsburg, the director of the state-run Gamaleya research centre that developed Sputnik V, said in an interview with government paper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Gintsburg said the pandemic will only come under control in Russia when “70-75%” of the country is fully vaccinated.

“For this, of course, the given vaccine should be included in the national vaccination calendar,” he said.

He also called for children to be taught that they should be vaccinated.

“There should be posters that tell people to do this just as you have to wash your hands, brush your teeth, say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’,” he was quoted as saying.

Gintsburg said Russia was currently working on developing a nasal vaccine that would “complement” Sputnik V.

He said Moscow was also carrying out tests of a version of the Sputnik vaccine for minors.

Compulsory vaccinations would not “contradict the constitution”, senator Andrei Klishas who chairs a constitutional committee in the upper house of Russia’s parliament, said yesterday.

He said that such an initiative would have to be approved by parliament first, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.

On Monday, authorities in Saint Petersburg expanded the list of people subject to compulsory vaccination. It included people over 60, those with chronic diseases and transport employees to its list.

Russia’s statistics agency Rosstat said 44265 people died in Russia of coronavirus in September – nearly double the official government figure – bringing the agency’s total virus toll to nearly 450 000, the highest in Europe. | Micro-RNAs belongs to a group of molecules that serve as regulators of vascular function in diabetes and other conditions.

The reduction in microRNA-210 caused alterations in specific vascular protein levels and impaired blood vessel endothelial cell function. In laboratory experiments, restoration of microRNA-210 levels in red blood cells prevented the development of vascular injury via specific molecular changes.

“The findings demonstrate a previously unrecognised cause of vascular injury in type 2 diabetes.

“We hope that the results will pave the way for new therapies that increase red blood cell microRNA-210 levels and thereby prevent vascular injury in patients with type 2 diabetes,” says Zhichao Zhou, a researcher at the Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet, who conducted the study in collaboration with, among others, Professor John Pernow at the same department. |