The announcement of the registration of the first coronavirus vaccine in Russia was met with attempts by the western mainstream media to play down the news of the breakthrough drug by questioning its safety and effectiveness.
These concerns, however, hold no water since an adenovirus vaccine has been in use by the US Army for decades and has been applied to millions of its servicemen, Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which invested in the Sputnik V's research, said. He noted that over 10 million American recruits have received a vaccine based on live adenovirus since 1971, when it was first introduced. The second generation of the adenovirus vaccine was reapproved by the US Food and Drug Administration as safe in 2011 and has since once again been in use by the American Army, Dmitriev stressed.
Research on human adenoviruses as a potential base for vaccine development began in 1953. Vaccines do not contain live human adenoviruses, but human adenovirus vectors, that is, human viruses that cannot multiply in the body and are completely safe.
The Russian Sputnik V vaccine is using a proven and safe adenoviral vector-based platform. The drug's development emerged from research at the Gamaleya Research Institute since the 1980s. The institute noted that since the start of the adenovirus research, some 20,000 people globally have tested numerous vaccines based on them, proving the safety of this approach.
Russian Breakthrough Vaccine
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced on 11 August that the Gamaleya Research Institute had registered the first coronavirus vaccine and that its mass production will commence in the nearest future. He added that his own daughter took one herself and experienced no serious side effects apart from mild fever.
According to RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev, Russia has already received requests for over 1 billion vaccines from countries around the world. He added that right now Moscow has reached agreements with five other countries to reach a total production output of 500 million doses in 12 months. At the same time, some countries, as well as the western mainstream media, have expressed doubts regarding the vaccine's effectiveness and safety, citing the fact that it was tested on less than 100 volunteers. Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko dismissed these concerns as baseless claims of "foreign colleagues" working on other coronavirus vaccines, who felt "a certain competition" from the Russian drug.
