Russia shows the new vaccine factory Covid-19, even though its people are hesitant to take the injection

Russia shows the new vaccine factory Covid-19, even though its people are hesitant to take the injection

by

CNN gained exclusive access to the facility, now home to Generium Pharmaceutical, which was contracted to increase production of the Russian Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V.

The vast high-tech complex is one of seven new production centers across the country.

Each step of the production process had to be carefully designed and calibrated, including vast water filtration systems, to mass produce the new vaccine.

“In principle, the manufacturing process was known on a small laboratory scale, but doing it on a large industrial scale is another universe,” Dmitry Poteryaev, director of science at Generium, told CNN.

How Sputnik V spread across Latin America

“You can’t just go from one liter of bioreactor to 100 liters or 1000 or 1 ton of bioreactor. Each process is different, oxygenation is different, the mass balance is different ”, he explained.

He said that these problems were overcome several months ago and that the factory is now ready to further increase production.

“Now, we are producing several million doses per month and we hope to get even more, perhaps around 10 or 20 million per month,” said Poteryaev.

Sputnik V boxes are kept in cold storage before shipping.

In cavernous refrigerators, with temperatures even colder than the freezing winter in Russia, vials of Sputnik V are packed in crates, awaiting distribution. Each bottle has its own unique QR code, we are informed, so that it can be tracked down to individual patients, no matter where they are.

The vaccine has become one of the most ordered in the world, with at least 30 countries, from Argentina to the Philippines, signing contracts for almost 2.5 billion doses so far, according to data from the Russian Fund for Direct Investment (RDIF), responsible for production and global vaccine distribution.

Hesitation at home

But demand among Russians for Sputnik V has so far been much less enthusiastic.

This is a country with one of the highest numbers of Covid-19 infections in the world – over 4.1 million cases and counting. But it also has one of the highest vaccine hesitation rates in the world. A recent opinion poll, published by the independent Levada Center, indicated that only 38% of Russians want to be vaccinated.

Earlier this month, one of the leading scientists behind the vaccine’s development said that about 2.2 million people – less than 2% of the Russian population – received at least the initial dose of the two-dose regimen.

Millions of doses of Sputnik V are already being produced each month at the Generium Pharmaceutical plant.
Sputnik V was the first vaccine against Covid-19 to be approved for use anywhere in the world last August, even before large-scale human trials were completed.
There was widespread initial skepticism about Sputnik V, which was named after the world’s first satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, starting the space race with the United States. Critics say the “Putin vaccine” was designed to be another innovation in a global race, to project the Kremlin’s power, regardless of how effective or safe it is.
The race inside the Russian coronavirus vaccine laboratory
But large-scale human test results, published and peer-reviewed in the prestigious Lancet medical journal earlier this month, showed an impressive 91.6% effectiveness for the vaccine.

Still, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories are running wild on the internet and seen by millions in Russia, according to monitoring groups. Alexander Arkhipova, a social anthropologist at a state university known as RANEPA, told CNN that many Russians have a cultural tendency to distrust the medical establishment, which is seen as a controlling arm of the government, interfering in people’s private lives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not yet received the vaccine.

Another reason for doubt may be that, although President Vladimir Putin said his daughter was vaccinated, he has not yet applied the vaccine.

The Kremlin rejected questions about why, saying Putin has a scheduled vaccine and that when he gets vaccinated, the nation will be informed.

But in a country where many people turn to the Kremlin strongman for his leadership, his abstinence in front of Sputnik V is remarkable and disheartening.

Ice cream incentives

All adults without underlying health conditions in Russia are now eligible for a free vaccination. But progress in Moscow, for example, is painfully slow. In a city with more than 12 million inhabitants, less than 600,000 have been vaccinated so far, according to Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.

So, the impetus is to increase the numbers.

The state-funded Gamaleya Institute, where the vaccine was developed, was happy to invite the CNN team to obtain inoculation, so to speak, from the source.
People line up for an injection of Sputnik V at a clinic at the GUM shopping center in Moscow.

And in Moscow – the epicenter of Russia’s coronavirus pandemic – emerging clinics are being set up.

There is one at the luxurious GUM shopping center, a short walk from snowy Red Square, where Muscovites can read the latest news in expensive boutiques before going up to buy Sputnik V. They even get free ice cream with every inoculation – coated with vanilla chocolate .

GUM department store customers enjoy free ice cream after vaccination.

Officials told CNN that they were vaccinating about 200 people every day. There is capacity for hundreds more.

Another clinic was set up in a trendy cafeteria, Depo Moscow, to encourage vaccination after a street food lunch or sushi dinner.

For lovers of classical music, there is even one inside Helikon, a prestigious Moscow opera house, where austere tones of recorded tenors sound over the speakers while people wait for their inoculation.

Some people are getting the message that the vaccine is the best chance of surviving the pandemic.

Vadim Svistunov, 84, received his first injection of vaccine and reinforcement at an opera house.

Vadim Svistunov, 84, and his wife, Nonna, 86, went to the theater for the initial injection of the vaccine and for the booster three weeks later.

“We don’t want to go up there yet,” Svistunov told CNN, as he gestured to the sky. “We are not in a hurry,” he said.

.Source