Russia plans to share preliminary results of its COVID-19 vaccine trial based on the first six weeks of monitoring participants, raising the tempo in an already frenzied global race to end the pandemic.
Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, shows bottles with Sputnik-V vaccine against the coronavirus disease during an interview with Reuters in Moscow, Russia September 24, 2020. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva
Sitting in his wood-panelled office at the institute in Moscow, Gintsburg said his team had been set a tight deadline to produce a vaccine but all the guidelines for testing Sputnik V’s safety and efficacy had been followed. Gintsburg said there was a public interest argument for sharing interim results after 42 days as they would show the general trend in the data.
A government source told Reuters the interim Phase III trial results would likely inform a decision on whether to expand this mass inoculation drive, starting with people over 60.Gintsburg said no serious side-effects had been reported during the Phase III trial so far, while minor, anticipated side-effects had occurred among just 14% to 15% of the volunteers. A quarter of the participants receive a placebo.
Gintsburg said having 40,000 trial participants meant the trial would be effective even with low levels of COVID-19 transmission in the Russian capital.
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