Russian President Vladimir Putin announced yesterday that the former superpower had become the first country to approve a vaccine offering ‘sustainable immunity’ against Covid-19, but the World Health Organisation (WHO) said a rigorous safety data review would be needed before it could give its stamp of approval.
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine – named after the Soviet-era satellite – has been developed by the Gamaleya research institute in coordination with the country’s defence ministry, and is one of 165 candidate vaccines are being worked on around the world.
Putin underscored his confidence in Sputnik V – which he said was ‘quite effective’ and had passed ‘all needed checks’ – by revealing that one of his two daughters had been given the vaccine in trials. He said she was feeling fine, despite a brief temperature increase, according to a BBC report.
But WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic indicated that ‘pre-qualification’ of the vaccine would depend on a ‘rigorous review and assessment of all the required safety and efficacy data’.
‘We are in close contact with the Russian health authorities and discussions are ongoing with respect to possible WHO pre-qualification of the vaccine,’ he said.
Jasarevic explained: ‘WHO has in place a process of pre-qualification for vaccines but also for medicines. Manufacturers ask to have the WHO pre-qualification because it is a sort of stamp of quality. To get this, there is a review and assessment of all required safety and efficacy data that are gathered through the clinical trials. WHO will do this for any candidate vaccine.’
It was reported yesterday that, of the 165 vaccines currently in development, 139 are still in pre-clinical evaluation, while the other 26 are in the various phases of being tested on humans, of which six are the furthest ahead, having reached Phase 3 of clinical evaluation.
The Gamaleya candidate being produced in Russia, which is among the 26 being tested on humans, is listed as being in Phase 1.
AFP reported that Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund which is financing the vaccine project, said Phase 3 trials would start today, industrial production was expected from September, and that 20 countries had pre-ordered more than a billion doses.
In other virus-related news
- Positive cases grew in South Africa yesterday by 2 511 to a cumulative total of 566 109 (with 426 125 recoveries). Deaths rose by 130 to 10 751. The highest tally of cases is in Gauteng (194 093), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (100 494), the Western Cape (100 316) and the Eastern Cape (82 715);
- With grade 7s returning to class yesterday, the Department of Basic Education warned people threatening to disrupt schools that they were breaking the law. It said: ‘The department has become aware of the attempts made by some members of the School Governing Bodies (SGBs) around the country to close schools and disrupt learning.’ The department said that, in Gauteng, SGB members disrupted 38 schools in Daveyton/Etwatwa, 37 schools in Tsakane, and eight schools in KwaThema;
- News24 reported that municipalities were losing billions of rands in revenue because of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the hardest-hit being the big metros of Cape Town and Johannesburg. The report said the City of Cape Town was projecting a loss of R5.7 billion; and
- New Zealand put Auckland, its largest city, back into a three-day lockdown after recording four new Covid-19 cases, ending a 102-day streak without a local infection. The four new cases are all members of a single family. None had travelled recently.