MOSCOW (AP) – Russian scientists belatedly published the first effects of the initial trials of the experimental Sputnik V vaccine, which gained government approval last month, but generated strong complaints from experts, as injections were tested only on dozens of other people before being administered more widely.
In a report published Friday in Lancet magazine, the vaccine’s developers said it gave the impression of being safe and causing an antibody reaction in the other 40 people tested in the test phase within 3 weeks.participants were only followed for 42 days, that the test pattern was small and that no placebo or vaccine was used.
Part of the protective trial referred only to men and the test focused primarily on others in their twenties and thirties, so it’s hard to know how the vaccine can appear in older populations with the threat of more severe COVID-19 headaches.
International experts have remained cautious about the effectiveness and protection of the vaccine, however, its Russian developers made ambitious statements Friday after presenting the effects to journalists.
Professor Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute who developed the vaccine with the help of the Russian Ministry of Defense, told reporters that the vaccine triggers a “sufficient” immune reaction to counteract any dose that infects (a person) with COVID-19..”
“We are ready to say that the protective effect of this vaccine will be detectable and will remain at an appropriate point for 2 years or more,” Gintsburg said, without offering any evidence of this claim.
According to Lancet’s report, trials were conducted in two Russian hospitals involving healthy adults between the age of 18 and 60, who had to self-insulate once registered for the trial and remained in the hospital for the first 28 days after being vaccinated.
Part of the study concerned frozen formulations of the vaccine while investigating a lyophilized variant. The scientists said the frozen vaccine would be suitable for existing global vaccine source chains, while the lyophilized edition could be used in hard-to-reach areas.
Both vaccines used a modified edition of the common cold-causing adenovirus to bring complex protein genes to the coronavirus, in order to initiate the framework to react if a genuine COVID-19 virus occurs.It’s a vaccine-like generation, evolved through CanSino Biologics in China and the British University of Oxford and AstraZeneca.
Russian researchers said the 40 participants produced a response of neutralizing antibodies, molecules essential to block infection.Vaccines also appear to cause a reaction in the body’s T cells, which by destroying cells that have been invaded by the virus.
The maximum side effects reported were injection site pain, fever, headache and muscle or joint pain.
In an adjunct commentary, Dr. Naor Bar-Zeev of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and his colleagues wrote that the studies were “modest and encouraging.”They said the immune reaction to the vaccine “bodes well,” “the effectiveness of any COVID-19 vaccine has not yet been demonstrated.”