According to a second interim analysis of clinical trial data, Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is 95 percent effective, its developers said on Tuesday.
They said the two-dose vaccine will be available on international markets for less than $10 (8.40 euros) per dose and will be free for Russian citizens.
It can be stored at between two and eight degrees Celsius (between 35.6 and 46.4 degrees Fahrenheit), instead of the temperatures below freezing required for some other vaccines.
Russia’s health ministry, the state-run Gamaleya Research Centre and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said in a statement, the calculations of its effectiveness were based on preliminary data obtained 42 days after the first dose.
The statement said that the vaccine had shown 91.4 percent effectiveness 28 days after the first dose, a figure based on 39 cases.
BREAKING: Second interim analysis of clinical trial data showed a 91.4% efficacy for the #SputnikV vaccine on day 28 after the first dose; vaccine efficacy is over 95%
42 days after the first dose.Read More: https://t.co/qfCZ9FG8WH
— Sputnik V (@sputnikvaccine) November 24, 2020
After Forty-two days, the second dose, data showed “an efficacy of the vaccine above 95 percent.”
However, it did not note the number of coronavirus cases used to make the final calculation.
Gamaleya’s director Alexander Gintsburg said in the statement, “The second analysis was conducted a week after volunteers got the second dose, meaning that their bodies have partially reacted to both doses.”
The centre expects the efficacy rate to be “even higher” three weeks after the second dose, he said.
The statement said that 22,000 volunteers had been vaccinated with the first dose and more than 19,000 with both doses.
Overseas trials of the vaccine are also taking place in the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Belarus and other countries.
In August, Russia become the first country to register a coronavirus vaccine but did go ahead of the large-scale clinical trials those are still underway.
Last month, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had registered a second coronavirus vaccine, EpiVac Corona, as a global race heats up in producing an effective vaccine to combat the pandemic, which has now claimed the lives of nearly 1.4 million people.
Pharma companies Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their virus vaccine is 95 percent effective, while US company Moderna said last week early results showed its candidate was 94.5 percent effective.
Putin last week said that Russia had manufacturing agreements in place with China and India and encouraged Brazil and South Africa to also mass produce Russian-made vaccines.
