Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, told Channel One television on Wednesday that the registration of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is stalled by “signals from the halls of influence” in Brussels. In the midst of the pandemic, this is unethical, he said.
In August 2020, Russia became the first country in the world to record an anti-coronavirus vaccine. Sputnik V was the name assigned to the vaccine produced by the Russian Health Ministry’s Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology. It is a human adenovirus-based vector vaccine.
At least 61 countries with a combined population of over three billion citizens have signed up. Based on a study of coronavirus occurrence results among Russians inoculated with both shots of the vaccine from December 5, 2020, to March 31, 2021, the vaccine’s efficacy was determined to be 97.6%.
On March 4, the European Medicines Agency announced that it had begun the Sputnik V assessment procedures to determine if it complied with EU effectiveness, protection, and consistency requirements. The EMA anticipates that the Russian vaccine will be registered by the end of May.
