Putin: We got bug vaccine! Docs: Yikes!
Nyet so fast!
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he’s approved the world’s first coronavirus vaccine, calling it a cutting-edge answer to the fast-spreading disease ripping its way across the globe.
Putin made the announcement on state TV despite the fact that the wonder vaccine is barely out of Phase 1 testing.
“It’s absurd. This is not how you do vaccine approval experiments. None of this makes sense,” John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, told the Daily News.
“All they’ve done is a Phase 1 trial. And several phase 1 trials have already been completed in America. So they’re not ahead of the U.S. They’re just making a statement,” Moore said.
The Russian leader attempted to quell skepticism Tuesday morning, explaining that one of his two adult daughters had already received the vaccine. Her fever increased upon the injection but was down to normal the following day, he noted.
“A vaccine against coronavirus has been registered for the first time in the world this morning. I know that it works quite effectively. It forms stable immunity,” Putin said.
“I hope our foreign colleagues’ work will move as well, and a lot of products will appear on an international market that could be used.”
The potential treatment, developed by Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute, has been dubbed the Sputnik-V — a seeming nod to world’s first satellite launch in 1957 by the Soviet Union.
Rather than go through Phase 3 testing first, a new wave of people will receive the vaccine — including doctors, teachers and some high-risk individuals — and then be placed under some kind of observation, according to health officials.
Unlike most vaccinations being developed in other parts of the world, like the one being created by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, vaccination will start while the Phase 3 trials continue, according to Prof. Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya Institute.
He said initially there will be only enough doses to conduct vaccinations in 10 to 15 of Russia’s 85 regions, according to the Interfax news agency.