The new coronavirus has to fight another vaccine, it seems, since the Russian Sputnik V vaccine was found to be 91.6% effective against symptomatic cases of COVID-19 and 100% effective against severe and moderate cases, according to the CNN.
- The results were published in The Lancet on Tuesday.
What do the numbers say
The data comes from the results of the phase 3 study, which included 19,866 participants. About 75% of participants (14,964) received two doses of the vaccine and 4,902 received a placebo, via CNN.
- There were 16 confirmed cases of symptomatic COVID-19 among those who received the vaccine.
- There were 62 cases of COVID-19 among the placebo group, according to the data.
- The vaccine also looked at patients over 60, finding that the vaccine was 91.8% effective for those over that age, reports the Politico.
Context
In August 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country had the world’s first coronavirus vaccine, which I wrote for Deseret News. He said he even tested the vaccine on his daughter.
At the time, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former United States Food and Drug Administration commissioner, told CNBC that he would not use Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine, as there was no clinical trial data to prove its success.
- “They eliminated the equivalent, in fact, of a phase 1 clinical trial in terms of putting it in 100 to maybe 300 patients, so it needs to be evaluated in a large-scale clinical trial.”
Later in September, a peer-reviewed study in The Lancet found that Russia’s potential coronavirus vaccine had no major side effects, as I wrote for Deseret News.