Early data for Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine show that it is 92 percent effective, the country's sovereign wealth fund has said. The announcement follows the results posted earlier this week by vaccine developers Pfizer and BioNTech, who said their US-German jab was more than 90 percent effective at preventing the disease. The interim results for Sputnik V are based on data from the first 16,000 trial participants, who received both shots of the two-dose vaccine, said Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which has been backing the vaccine and marketing it globally. "We are showing, based on the data, that we have a very effective vaccine," said RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev on Wednesday, adding that it was the sort of news that the developers would talk about one day with their grandchildren. While experts said the Russian data was encouraging and reinforced the idea the pandemic could be halted by vaccines, they warned that the results were only based on a small number of trial volunteers who had contracted COVID-19. The analysis was conducted after 20 participants developed the virus and examined how many had received the vaccine versus placebo. That is significantly lower than the 94 infections in the trial of the vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. To confirm the efficacy rate of its vaccine, Pfizer said it would continue its trial until there were 164 COVID-19 cases. Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Institute which developed Sputnik V vaccine, said the interim results demonstrated that it was effective and mass vaccinations would be rolled out in Russia in the coming weeks, according to Reuters In later comments, aired by Rossiya-24 state TV channel, he said at least 1.5 million people in Russia were expected to receive the shot by the end of the year. He added that around 40,000 to 45,000 Russians had already been vaccinated. China's Sinopharm, which is running large-scale late-stage clinical trials for two COVID-19 vaccine candidates, said on Wednesday that its data was better than expected, though it did not give further details. — Agencies
