The leading group of scientists advising the Federal Government says there is still no clear frontrunner in the global race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, and picking a winner after six months is like "betting on a horse race".

Key points:

• The advice comes from 15 of Australia's most prominent researchers and scientists
• The Federal Government is understood to be moving swiftly to lock in agreements across the world

• Australia is particularly interested in a vaccine being developed by Oxford University

As pressure grows across the world to lock in a supply of a COVID-19 vaccine, the Australian Academy of Science's latest update to the Federal Government advises it is still "too early" and backs Australia's current wait-and-see approach.

The yet-to-be-published advice from 15 of Australia's most prominent researchers and scientists — which is currently being peer-reviewed — has been passed on to Australia's chief scientist Alan Finkel. 

The scientists are part of Australia's COVID-19 Rapid Research Information Forum, which is helping guide decisions by Health Minister Greg Hunt and Prime Minister Scott Morrison on which vaccines to prioritise. 

It is understood the latest review, the third so far since the pandemic began, will advise the Federal Government that no clear victor has yet emerged.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-13/coronavirus-covid19-vaccine-race-in-australia-too-early/12551620

 

Forbidden Op-Ed: The Sputnik Vaccine as a Lifesaving Global Partnership

 

by Kirill Dmitriev

 

This opinion piece, which tells the story behind the creation of the Russian vaccine against COVID-19 and emphasizes the willingness of Russia to cooperate with the international community, has been rejected by all leading Western media.

We therefore decided to publish it as is in order to share our views with an international audience and to lift the blockade imposed on positive information about the Russian COVID-19 vaccine. We believe that this information is crucial for the international effort to fight the world’s biggest challenge and would like readers to decide for themselves why this op-ed has been rejected.

This op-ed can be republished by any media, should they find it useful to present their readers with the history and some facts about the world's first registered COVID vaccine. RDIF has also launched the website www.sputnikvaccine.com to provide accurate and up-to-date information about the vaccine.
--------------Russia’s Success in Developing COVID-19 Vaccine is Rooted in History

The “Sputnik moment” has happened. The Russian vaccine “Sputnik V” has been launched becoming the world’s first registered COVID-19 vaccine and evoking memories of the 1957 shock launch of a Soviet satellite, which opened space to exploration by humans. This new era led not only to competition but also to many collaborative efforts, including the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission by the United States and the Soviet Union.

A COVID-19 vaccine is the world’s number one priority and many countries, organizations and companies claim they are close to developing one. By the end of this year some other countries may have their own vaccines. It is important that political barriers do not prevent the best available technologies from being used for the benefit of all people in the face of the most serious challenge humankind has faced in decades.

Unfortunately, instead of looking into the science behind the proven adenoviral vector-based vaccine platform Russia has developed, some international politicians and media chose to focus on politics and attempts to undermine the credibility of the Russian vaccine. We believe that such an approach is counter-productive and call for a political “ceasefire” on vaccines in the face of COVID-19 pandemic.

It is not broadly known worldwide that Russia has been one of the global leaders in vaccine research for centuries. Russian Empress Catherine the Great set an example in 1768 when she received the country’s first smallpox vaccination, 30 years before the first vaccination was done in the United States.

In 1892 Russian scientist Dmitri Ivanovsky observed an unusual effect while studying tobacco leaves infected with a mosaic disease. The leaves remained infectious even after the scientist filtered out the bacteria. Although it was still almost half a century before the first virus could be seen through a microscope, Ivanovsky’s research gave birth to a new science called virology.

Since Ivanovsky’s discovery, Russia has been one of the global leaders in virology and vaccine research, producing scores of talented scientists such as researcher Nikolay Gamaleya, who studied at the laboratory of French biologist Louis Pasteur in Paris and opened the world’s second vaccination station for rabies in Russia in 1886.

The Soviet Union continued to support research into viruses and vaccines. Everyone born after the Second World War received mandatory vaccinations against polio, tuberculosis and diphtheria. In a rare example of Cold War era cooperation, three leading Soviet virologists went to the United States in 1955 to offer testing opportunities in the Soviet Union for a U.S. vaccine against polio, a deadly disease which claimed millions of lives. If we were able to cooperate then, we can and must do it again now.

Decades of efforts by Russian and Soviet scientists led to the creation of an excellent research infrastructure, such as the National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Nikolai Gamaleya. This infrastructure ranges from one of the richest “virus libraries” in the world, created using a unique preservation technique, to experimental animal breeding centers. We are proud of this legacy, which allowed us to create the first approved COVID-19 vaccine in the world. We already received international requests for 1 bln doses of our vaccine and reached international agreements to produce 500 mln doses annually with the intention to ramp it up.

The Real Secret

Today, many Western media and politicians question the speed of the COVID-19 vaccine creation in Russia, raising doubts about its efficacy and authenticity. The secret behind this speed is Russia’s expertise in vaccine research. Since the 1980s, the Gamaleya Center has led the effort to develop a technological platform using adenoviruses, found in human adenoids and normally transmitting the common cold, as “vectors” or vehicles, which can induce a genetic material from another virus into a cell.

The gene from adenovirus, which causes the infection, is removed while a gene with the code of a protein from another virus is inserted. This inserted element is small, not a dangerous part of a virus and is safe for the body but still helps the immune system to react and produce antibodies, which protect us from the infection.

The technological platform of adenovirus-based vectors makes it easier and faster to create new vaccines through modifying the initial carrier vector with genetic material from new emerging viruses. Such vaccines provoke a strong response from a human body in order to build immunity while the overall process of vector modification and pilot-scale manufacturing takes only a few months.

Human adenoviruses are considered some of the easiest to engineer in this way and therefore they have become very popular as vectors. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic all Russian researchers had to do was to extract a coding gene from the spike of the novel coronavirus and implant it into a familiar adenovirus vector for delivery into a human cell. They decided to use this already proven and available technology instead of going into uncharted territory.

The most recent studies also indicate that two shots of the vaccine are needed to create a long-lasting immunity. Since 2015 Russian researchers have been working on a two-vector approach hence the idea to use two types of adenoviral vectors, Ad5 and Ad26, in the COVID-19 vaccine. In this way, they trick the body, which has developed immunity against the first type of vector, and boost the effect of the vaccine with the second shot using a different vector.

It is like two trains trying to deliver an important cargo to a fortress of a human body which needs the delivery in order to start producing antibodies. You need the second train to make sure the cargo reaches its destination. The second train should be different from the first one, which already came under attack from the body’s immune system and is already familiar to it. So, while other vaccine makers have only one train, we have two.

With its two-vector approach the Gamaleya Center also developed and registered a vaccine against Ebola fever. This vaccine has been used on several thousand people over the last few years creating a proven vaccine platform that was used for the COVID-19 vaccine. Аbout 2,000 people in Guinea received injections of Gamaleya vaccines in 2017-18 and the Gamaleya Center has an international patent for its Ebola vaccine.

Two Vector Approach

The Gamaleya Center used adenoviral vectors to develop vaccines against influenza and against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Both vaccines are currently in advanced stages of clinical trials. These achievements show that Russian labs did not waste their time in the last few decades while the international pharmaceutical industry often underestimated the importance of new vaccines research in the absence of global health threats prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other countries follow in our footsteps developing adenoviral vector-based vaccines. Oxford University is using an adenovirus from a monkey, which has neither been used in an approved vaccine before unlike human adenoviruses. U.S. company Johnson & Johnson is using adenovirus Ad26 and China’s CanSino - adenovirus Ad5, the same vectors the Gamaleya Center is using, but they are yet to master the two-vector approach. Both companies already received large orders for vaccines from their governments.

The use of two vectors is the unique technology, developed by the Gamaleya Center scientists, which differentiates the Russian vaccine from other adenoviral vector-based vaccines under development around the world. Vaccines based on adenoviral vectors also have clear advantages over other technologies such as mRNA vaccines.

Prospective mRNA vaccines, undergoing clinical trials in the United States and other countries, do not use vectors for delivery and represent an RNA molecule with coronavirus protein code wrapped in a lipid membrane. This technology is promising but its side effects, especially an impact on fertility, have not yet been studied in depth. No mRNA vaccine has yet received regulatory approval in the world. We believe that in the global vaccine race to fight coronavirus adenoviral vector-based vaccines will be the winners but even in this category the Gamaleya vaccine has the edge.

Confronting Skepticism

The Russian vaccine is now ready and registered. The first two phases of clinical trials are over and their results will be published this month in line with international requirements. These documents will provide detailed information about the vaccine, including the exact levels of antibodies as shown by several third-party tests as well as by Gamaleya’s proprietary test, which identifies the most efficient antibodies attacking the spike of coronavirus.

They will also show that all the participants of the clinical trials developed a 100 percent immunity to COVID-19. Studies on Syrian hamsters, animals which usually die from COVID-19, showed 100% protection and an absence of lung-damage after they received a lethal infection dose. After the registration we will conduct international clinical trials in 3 other countries. Mass production of the vaccine is expected to start by September and we already see strong global interest in the vaccine.

Skepticism among international media and politicians has surfaced just as Russia announced its plans for mass COVID-19 vaccine production. When I spoke with Western media many refused to include key facts about the Russian COVID-19 vaccine research in their stories. We view this skepticism as an attempt to undermine our efforts to develop a working vaccine, which will stop the pandemic and help to re-open the global economy.

It is not the first time Russia has faced international mistrust over its leadership in science when politics stand in the way of scientific breakthroughs and put public health at risk. During the polio outbreak in Japan in the 1950s Japanese mothers whose children were dying from polio, went to demonstrate against their own government, which banned imports of Soviet polio vaccine for political reasons. The protesters achieved their goal and the ban was lifted saving the lives of more than 20 million Japanese children.

Today politics again stand in the way of the Russian technology, which can save lives around the world. Russia is open to international cooperation in fighting this and future pandemics. In the words of a Soviet delegate at the international conference on polio vaccines in Washington in 1960 who said in response to questions from the audience about the vaccine’s safety that we in Russia “love our children and are concerned for their wellbeing as much as people in the United States, or any other part of the world are for their children”.

After these words the Soviet delegation received a standing ovation from the audience and joint work on vaccines continued. The wellbeing and prosperity for future generations is what we need to think about now. All countries in the world need to leave politics behind and focus on finding the best solutions and technologies in order to protect lives and resume economic activity.

Our fund has already secured manufacturing partnerships in 5 countries to jointly produce the Russian vaccine. Maybe at some point thanks to this partnership in fighting COVID-19 we can also review and abandon the politically motivated restrictions on international relations, which have become obsolete and represent an obstacle to coordinated efforts in dealing with global challenges.

Kirill Dmitriev is chief executive officer of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund with $50 billion under management. 

The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

 

 

Russia has registered the world's first vaccine against COVID-19, dubbed Sputnik V, in reference to the Soviet satellite that triggered global space research. Scientists believe the vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya Research Centre, will similarly create a so-called "Sputnik effect" for the rest of the world fighting against the pandemic.

Sputnik has spoken to Denis Logunov, deputy research director at the Gamaleya Centre, to learn more about the scientific research into the Russian coronavirus vaccine, which will be published shortly in international scientific journals.

Logunov revealed how they managed to create the vaccine so quickly, although it usually takes at least 1.5 years, and explained the vaccine is unique because it uses two adenoviruses, the 5th and 26th.

Sputnik: Last Sunday you submitted the results of clinical trials to the Russian Ministry of Health. The results haven't been published yet. What are the main findings of these studies?

Denis Logunov: We have conducted a full range of preclinical studies on the vaccine's safety and efficacy, which were followed by two clinical studies that examined the vaccine in terms of safety and immunogenicity involving healthy volunteers. Based on the results of these studies, the vaccine showed a good safety profile and high immunogenicity. Speaking about specific indicators and numbers achieved, the volunteers' average geometric titer of antibodies reached more than 1 in 14,000, nearly 1 in 15,000. One hundred percent of the volunteers had seroconversion.

Seroconversion is when a person's antibody titer increases more than 4 times compared to the initial, background values. Humoral immunity parameters were also assessed via a virus neutralisation reaction, that is, the virus's direct inactivation by antibodies.

Virus neutralising antibodies have been found in all the volunteers immunised with our vaccine, both when using the dry and the liquid forms of the vaccine. Various cellular immune response indicators were also analysed, in particular, cytotoxic lymphocytes, which is a very important antiviral immunity parameter.

Cytotoxic lymphocytes, which remove virus-infected cells from the body, have been found in all the vaccinated volunteers. Thus, the vaccine has shown very good results in terms of immunogenicity. As for safety, the expected adverse events in the form of temperature and pain at the injection site weren't observed in all the volunteers. These specific numbers will be published shortly.

Sputnik: How many people were involved in the first and second phases of testing?

Denis Logunov: The first and second phases involved 38 people each, a total of 76. The two protocols differed in that the vaccine’s active substance was the same, but its physical state was different. One form was freeze-dried, the other was frozen. There was one active substance but two forms of the vaccine. That is why there were 76 people.

Sputnik: What was the age range of the participants?

Denis Logunov: Volunteers for the first and second phases were recruited from the 18-60 age group.

Sputnik: Media outlets have repeatedly said that it takes at least a year and a half to develop a safe and reliable vaccine. Could you explain how the scientists at the Gamaleya Research Centre managed to create a vaccine so quickly, literally in 5-6 months?

Denis Logunov: It would be wrong to say that we've managed to create a vaccine from scratch in a short time. Four decades have passed since adenoviral vector technology was introduced into practice. Over these four decades, a technological platform was created that has been tested on tens of thousands of people, both on the basis of the 5th and the 26th serotype vector. Since 2015, more than 3,000 people have been vaccinated with adenoviral vector-based vaccines developed at the Gamaleya Centre. Therefore, it was not a 5-month effort in any way, but work over several decades.

Adenoviral vector-based vaccines were not only created in Russia. China, CanSino, and Johnson & Johnson are also working with adenoviral vectors. First of all, it’s about developing vaccines against Ebola. These platforms are well-known and well-studied in clinical trials. Apart from clinical trial results, what can be said in favour of these adenoviral vector-based platforms' safety is that we all suffer from adenoviruses, and no one ever has any consequences in the form of somatic diseases.

The Americans have done quite a lot of work on immunising people with the 4th and 7th serotype of adenoviruses. All US Army recruits are vaccinated with adenoviruses. A large retrospective correlation study on more than 100,000 vaccinated people didn't reveal any abnormalities. Moreover, we’ve been living with adenovirus for millions of years, and there are no associations with somatic pathologies after adenovirus infections. We are not working with live adenoviruses, but with adenovirus vectors.

These are viruses, which have parts of their genomes removed, and they can’t reproduce in human cells. It turns out that living with adenoviruses is not that scary, while living with vectors that are not able to reproduce is completely safe. And my words are supported by tens of thousands of studies of these vectors, including many clinical studies.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/interviews/202008171080192137-russias-covid-19-vaccine-is-work-of-several-decades-gamaleya-deputy-research-director-reveals/

 

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On 11 August, Russia announced the world's first vaccine for COVID-19, named 'Sputnik V', in a bid to curb the pandemic that has currently killed over 737,000 globally. International observers detail why the breakthrough development has been met with either silence or rejection from the Western press.

Developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, the Russian anti-coronavirus vaccine has undergone a series of trials launched on 18 June 2020, and has proved to be efficient.

Instead of a sense of relief, the announcement - made by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday - prompted annoyance and skepticism in the Western mainstream media: "Moscow is cutting corners on testing to score political and propaganda points", The New York Times claims. The Wall Street Journal expressed concern over the "safety" and "efficacy" of the Russian vaccine, while The Guardian alleged that "Sputnik V’s development has been marked by worrying opacity and ethical issues".

'Combination of Envy & Embarrassment'"This reaction may be characterised as a case of 'sour grapes' - meaning a combination of envy and embarrassment that Russia has proven itself far bolder than the global, especially US and European competitors, in addressing directly the threat of the virus to human health and to the economy, while wasting no time", opined Gilbert Doctorow, an independent Brussels-based political analyst.

According to Doctorow, many of the skeptics are more generally Russia-bashers and detractors, as they know little about the country and have no idea about Russia's scientific community and its achievements over the past decade, precisely in the area of immunology and combating infectious diseases.

Guy Mettan, a Swiss politician and the executive director of the Geneva Press Club, is not confused by the outburst from the Western mainstream press:

"The reason for such a truncated approach is a consequence of the deep-rooted Russophobic prejudices and clichés concerning Russia which are growing since around a decade," Mettan notes. "Writing bad and negative news about Russia has become so common that lots of journalists cannot imagine to change the stance and are convinced that if Russia makes someting good, it would be necessarily a fake."

Earlier, Russia came on US and European mainstream media radar due to a relatively modest number of COVID-related deaths, despite that a number of countries around the world boasted even lower fatality rates from the coronavirus.

Given the current climate in Western views of Russia, it's not surprising that the vaccine is immediately rejected before its results are known, admits Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortiumnews. "It's a knee-jerk reaction, though there is reason for measured scientific skepticism as vaccines usually take years to develop", he opines.

'Skeptics' Know Little About Russia's Scientific Achievements

Russian scientists provide a clear explanation for the mind-boggling speed of the new vaccine development: the crux of the matter is that it was made on the base of previous research. 

Since the 1980s, the Gamaleya Centre has been developing a technological platform using adenoviruses found in human adenoids and normally transmitting the common cold, as vehicles, or 'vectors', which could carry a genetic material from another virus into a cell.

"These are large viruses and vectors – the entire pathogenic part was removed from them and the spike gene was inserted there", says Pavel Volchkov, head of the laboratory of genomic engineering at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. "They made a two-part vaccine. They use a single virus to initiate immunisation".

This method was used to create the vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus in 2015. Russian researchers carried out a great deal of study on the selection of required doses as well as on the side effects of the two-vector vaccine. The anti-Ebola preventive has been used on several thousand people over the last few years, creating a proven platform that was instrumentalised for the development of the COVID-19 vaccine.

"This large amount of work, previously done in recent years, allowed the developers not to waste time on all these optimisation experiments, but rather quickly switch to the production of the necessary vaccine [against COVID-19] in the already selected dose, and they did it quite quickly", explains Volchkov, in addressing those skeptical about the speed of the development of Sputnik V and its efficacy.

Read more:

 

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/202008111080137681-why-sputnik-moment-of-russias-first-covid-vaccine-triggered-sour-grapes-reaction-in-western-msm/

 

 

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I am surprise that the Western media (MSM, MMMMM) has not said that this "success" is in relation to the Russians' ability to manufacture nasty poisons such as Novichok (similar to VX)... I am awaiting for some development, beyond a silly TV series about killing someone in Salisbury with a perfume bottle, coming to your box in your loungeroom... We haven't seen not heard from the Skripals for a long time now... The media owes us some more "evidence", via MI5 and MI6, that Russia did it...

The world’s first registered Covid-19 vaccine successfully produced antibodies in all 76 participants in early-stage trials, according to a study published in The Lancet, one of the oldest and best-respected medical journals.

The trials of ‘Sputnik V,’ funded by the Russian Ministry of Health, discovered that every single patient who received the vaccine developed antibodies, and none showed any significant side effects.

On August 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the country had registered the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine. Developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, the formula will first be distributed to teachers and medical workers before being made available to the general public next year.

Following its registration, scientists and epidemiologists worldwide criticized Russia for the vaccine’s rapid development, questioning its safety due to the small number of trial subjects. Although the testing was successful, longer-term trials, including a placebo comparison, are required to establish its actual quality, according to The Lancet.

However, according to the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the scientific data provided in the article proves the “safety and effectiveness of the Russian vaccine.”

Explaining why it took a month to publish the results, Gamaleya Institute head, Alexander Gintsburg, told Russian news agency Interfax that it took a long time to prepare, and the article was evaluated by five independent reviewers, following all standard international peer-review conventions.

“The scientific community has assessed it quite objectively,” he explained.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/russia/499876-the-lancet-russian-sputnik-vaccine-effectiveness/

 

 

 

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By Marcello Ferrada de Noli, Swedish professor emeritus of public health sciences esp. epidemiology, former Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School.

Sputnik V, the Russian vaccine against Covid-19, has been under relentless attacks by Western corporate media. Instead of rallying behind a potentially life-saving shot, some are willing to put the whole of humanity at stake.

Above all, there are two essential principles that regulate the survival of mankind. One is the ontogenetic, related to the survival of the individual, the other is the phylogenetic – connected to the survival of the species. The supreme dialectic of it being that, for the human race to survive, we the individuals have to secure our existence, to strive to keep healthy, to be. The only possible way for future generations to be born and exist is to carry on with that atavism.

A nuclear war using the current nuclear weapons can obliterate most of the human populations. And there are still 35 million tons of uranium left to mine – the equivalent to ten billion Hiroshima bombs. More than enough to wipe Earth clean of human life.

But the same may, theoretically, very well be accomplished by a smart deadly virus.

The Covid-19 pandemic has at present decimated lives and economies in all countries, and its massacre continues unabated. Epidemiology monitors estimate that almost one million (940 thousand) individuals on earth have now perished. Among all European and European-Asian countries, the five with the most deaths per capita are Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. Covid-19 deaths in Sweden are about five times the death toll in all its Nordic neighboring countries combined.

So far, the only functioning vaccine against an all-out nuclear holocaust has been human intelligence, brainy diplomacy added to strong deterrence, amidst the strive for peaceful coexistence. In the virus battlefront, to this point, the world's first officially registered (and so far, effective) coronavirus vaccine is the Russian-discovered Sputnik V.

Its closest competitor, the AstraZeneca project AZD1222, has only recently resumed clinical trials in the UK after a patient reported an adverse reaction. However, the US authorities have now put the AstraZeneca clinical trials on hold, including testing among American patients, until an investigation is concluded by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The article in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, reporting the results of the Sputnik V vaccine, demonstrated that 100 percent of participants in the clinical trials attained a stable humoral and cellular immune response.

There are many economic interests around the UK/Swedish AstraZeneca corporation and their vaccine project. The European Commission has made a down payment of €336 million to acquire 300 million doses of the vaccine – to start with.

And it is not the only pharmaceutical company related to Swedish interests. Novavax, Inc., a US-based company developing a vaccine project, also has facilities in Uppsala, Sweden.

Not surprisingly, the campaign in Sweden against the Sputnik V vaccine has been as forceful as it has been deceiving. In general, the Swedish state media as well as the corporate media (which partly receives financing with public funds), maintains a clear anti-Russian stance. Amina Manzoor, a medical commentator for news outlet Dagens Nyheter (DN), for instance, maintains that “they [the Russians] have no vaccine. It is only propaganda,” but there are no arguments given on the vaccine itself.

And Anna-Lena Lauren, DN’s correspondent in Russia – and who to the best of my knowledge neither has medical nor epidemiological academic education – says to Swedish TV4: “It is very doubtful how effective this vaccine is, and above all, how safe it can be.” In her interview, she mentions President Putin and “Soviet Union” more times than the actual Russian vaccine. The program’s anchor rounds up: “Questions have emerged about this vaccine in the research world. May the vaccine have been approved in Russia for political reasons, a propaganda instrument?”

But if anything is politically biased, it’s those “questions” relentlessly thrown at the Russian vaccine in political and research circles of the West.

The recent open letter of “criticism” from a number of scientists, who sent their reservations to The Lancet, presents no arguments that would invalidate the results of the vaccine. Their issue is with the “presentation of data.”

The “criticism,” widely reported in Western media, was sent by a group led by a US-based Italian researcher. The authors are also mainly Italian doctors, and some professors. One of them, Swedish professor Anders Björkman, is known in the debate for herd immunity.

And contrary to Sweden’s reaction, there are also positive reviews in Western media about Sputnik V. ‘Russian vaccine holds promise and other findings’ writes Medical News Today. ‘Vaccine shows ‘no serious adverse’ effects and creates antibody response’ quotes CNBC in a headline. And even BBC heads a report with ‘Russian vaccine shows signs of immune response’.

For the corporate world in the West, and the governments that represent them, the vaccine issue is a race, a new “cold war”-like confrontation, not about whose technologies would be more advanced for the sake of the health of all, but for the sake of their profits. They are now doing their best to cast unsubstantiated and speculative doubts on Sputnik V. They do it with no consideration of the vast harm this could cause by limiting public access in the nations under their sphere of influence to a potentially life-saving medical tool.

Countries should instead cooperate to decimate this epidemic, all scientific efforts put together to attack a plague killing individuals on Earth independently of race, faith and status. Some states’ selfish stances could end up self-destructive for those same states.

The fact is that the Russian Sputnik V is the closest the world has to a functioning vaccine against Covid-19. To wait too long for cooperation among governments in the implementation of this at-hand vaccination, is to cynically cooperate with the virus. It is to take a cold war against humanity as a whole.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/500981-sputnik-v-cold-war-covid/

 

 

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The Russian consumer health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, stated in early September that all volunteers for Stage 1 of clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Russian research centre Vektor had developed antibodies.

The Russian Health Ministry will complete the registration of Vektor Centre's COVID-19 vaccine by 15 October, the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing, Rospotrebnadzor, said Tuesday.

The vaccine, dubbed EpiVacCorona, is expected to undergo clinical trials with 5,000 volunteers after it is registered, the health authority said, adding that it will also be studied on volunteers aged over 60. 

Last week, the head of Vektor Centre's zoonotic diseases and flu department said the vaccine had been proven absolutely safe. He underlined that the vaccine does not provide life-long immunity, but guarantees immunity that will last at least six months.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/russia/202009221080533252-russia-to-complete-registration-of-second-covid-19-vaccine-by-15-october/

 

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Competitors in the Covid-19 vaccine race are publishing clinical protocols in hopes of securing lucrative emergency approval, which Russia’s Sputnik V was previously attacked for seeking. This time, however, the media are quiet.

The frontrunners in the US and western Europe’s quest to develop a coronavirus vaccine – Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna – have published their trial protocols in response to growing public unease over the rapid rollout of the promised coronavirus magic bullet. They reveal an overwhelming emphasis on being first to secure emergency approval from the relevant regulators, suggesting the companies’ goal is maximum profits rather than ensuring the physical health of the hundreds of millions of people who will be expected to line up for vaccination.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/501523-western-pharma-vaccines-rush-hypocrisy/

In 2021, COVID-19 will be worse than a nuclear war

World  » Europe 

Igor Korotchenko, military expert, editor-in-chief of National Defense Magazine, and Inna Novikova, Pravda.Ru editor-in-chief, reflected on the prospects and risks in the new year 2021. The biggest problem of 2020 - the coronavirus pandemic - is not going away in 2021, bringing the same and new problems along. What is the pandemic going to be like in 2021? What is going to happen in the world as a result of mass vaccination? Are borders going to reopen or are we all going to live in our countries under the conditions of high security without being able to travel abroad?

What do you think the new year 2021 is going to bring to all of us in the first place?" How do you see 2021?"

"The main challenge remains the same - the COVID pandemic. This is a global disaster that has affected each and everyone of us. Of course, this global and all-pertaining challenge is not going anywhere in 2021.

Covid is real, therefore, it is worse than a possible nuclear war

"Some perceives the risk of a nuclear war as a real threat, while others do not think so. Some people  see NATO as an aggressor, and some others do not. Yet, when the coronavirus comes to you, you are left to deal with it alone. 

"The healthcare system is working with its last bit of strength. God help us vaccination goes successfully. Many people believe the situation in the world will improve only because of vaccination.

 

COVID-19 remains the main threat to our health, safety and economy.

"COVID has turned our life upside down. A new countdown has started since last spring. Now not only vaccination has begun, but we can also witness the war of the vaccines. Many lethal cases have been reported because of the Pfizer vaccine, while the West continues criticizing the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, although everyone in Russia says that Sputnik V is the safest and most effective vaccine. It was then reported that people would be allowed to travel to Europe only if they have European vaccination certificates. Of course, such certificates won't be issued to Russian citizens, who take the Russian vaccine. Therefore, a new war begins between the vaccines."

"I heard about it too. I do not think that Spain, Italy and Finland, for example, will be happy to lose Russian tourists for good. It is only elite groups of Russian citizens who will be able to have Western vaccines - the rest will be injected with the Russian-made Sputnik V, before two other Russian vaccines are released after the completion of clinical trials. 

"Of course, this information is extremely unpleasant, but I still believe that it will not come to the point that one will not be able to get the Schengen visa without the European certificate of vaccination.

 

Countries of the world have turned into COVID camps

At the same time, under certain circumstances, at least during the third or fourth wave of COVID, Europe may indeed implement a number of certain restrictions that would prohibit Russian citizens from traveling Europe just because they have Russia, rather than European certificate of vaccination. 

On the one hand, all this sounds like total nonsense. On the other hand, given how the world is changing before our eyes, one does not have to exclude such a possibility. However, this will strike a colossal blow to the European tourist industry, including catering, entertainment, hotel sectors. 

In the next year or two,  COVID restrictions will affect citizens of not only Russia, but of many other countries.

In any case, I personally have confidence that our vaccine is a good one. I have already taken the first shot of Sputnik V, and a few weeks later I am having my second shot. I believe that Russia is among the leaders in the segment of the production of vaccines against coronavirus. I had no side effects from this vaccination, except I was very lazy for a few days.

Читайте больше на https://english.pravda.ru/world/145568-covid_pandemic/

Vaccine Diplomacy

 

The Surprising Success of Sputnik V

 

 

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the development of the Sputnik V vaccine is a welcome boost to his country's image. And it has been received with open arms in Latin America. In Europe, though, people remain skeptical. Rightly so?
Last week, Vladimir Putin finally got vaccinated against COVID-19. For almost half a year, the Russian president has been tirelessly praising the vaccine developed in Russia. Sputnik V, he has said, is the "best vaccine in the world." Nevertheless, he was disinclined to take it himself, and even withdrew from the public eye for a time. Now, though, it appears that he has changed his mind.

But there's a catch. No information was provided about which vaccine he chose to use. Nor were any images or video footage provided. Why not? "As to being vaccinated on camera, well he has never been a fan of that," Putin's spokesman said. "He doesn't like that."

Putin's delayed and covert vaccination fits well with the strange story of Sputnik V, the first vaccine approved for COVID-19 in the world. It is a success story, to be sure, but there are some pretty large qualifiers.

Millions of people around the world have already been vaccinated with Sputnik V and more than 50 countries have approved it. Images from faraway countries like Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela show pallets stacked with vials full of Sputnik V being welcomed. The world needs help, and Russia is there to provide it: That's the message.
But many places don't completely trust the Russian offer. And nowhere is that mistrust as pronounced as it is in Europe. But even in Russia, Sputnik V is viewed with some skepticism.

The vaccine continues to be dogged by the fact that its introduction was less than perfectly transparent. It was similar to Putin's recent vaccination: You have to believe it, because you're not going to see it. The result is that Sputnik V has become a matter of faith – as if the vials weren't full of vaccine, but of a cocktail of politics and medicine.


"Provocations" from the West

The birthplace of Sputnik V is the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology on the outskirts of Moscow. For more than two decades, it has been under the leadership of Alexander Ginzburg, a cheerful biologist with a chortling laugh. It's not easy get permission to visit him in his wood-paneled office: The institute answers to the Health Ministry, which rarely allows visitors. The Kremlin has warned of "provocations" in the Western media. On the other hand, though, the U.S. film director Oliver Stone, who is a friend of Putin's, dropped by the Gamaleya Institute recently and was vaccinated with Sputnik V.

Ginzburg doesn't share the ministry's concerns. Thank God, he says, that Sputnik V is now receiving more positive attention abroad than in the past – both in the media and in scientific circles.

It has almost been an entire year since Ginzburg was vaccinated with Sputnik V. The institute first began developing its vector vaccine, made up of two components, back in February 2020. Inactivated flu viruses (so-called adenoviruses) were used as a carrier to transport genetic material from the coronavirus pathogen into the cells of the human body.
Gamaleya had experience with vector vaccines, having developed one for the Ebola virus as well. The institute merely had to fill its carrier with a new payload. The researchers obtained the necessary COVID-19 viral material in mid-March from a clinic in Moscow, where a patient, who had picked up the infection in Rome, was receiving treatment.

Ginzburg said he was administered the vaccine on March 30, at a time when animal testing was still underway. "We staff members were vaccinated before the monkeys, right after the mice and at the same time as the hamsters and guinea pigs."

Still, the decision to receive the vaccination at such an early stage wasn't quite as daring as Ginzburg makes it sound. The Gamaleya Institute had already developed a comparable vaccine for a similar coronavirus – the one that causes MERS, the virus behind the 2012 outbreak in Saudi Arabia. And that vaccine, says Ginzburg, had already been tested on humans. Basically, MERS provided the researchers at the Gamaleya Institute with an unexpected head start on the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The research group was led by Denis Logunov, a sturdily built 42-year-old. A week ago Monday, he received personal praise from Putin for his work on Sputnik V in a televised video call. "I want to see this man and I want the entire country to see him," the president said.


David vs. Goliath

Logunov is visibly offended by the hail of criticism of the Sputnik V vaccine that came from abroad. It was particularly strong around the time the vaccine was approved in Russia – despite the fact that the results of the Phase I and II testing hadn't yet been released and Phase III testing hadn't even started yet. It looked as though Russia was taking shortcuts.

"It was an emergency authorization," Logunov says. The vectors used in the vaccine, he says, were well-established – a major difference to the new development techniques used by some of the competing vaccines, such as the mRNA approach used by BioNTech and Moderna.

Logunov believes the criticism from abroad is hypocritical. "It's offensive," he says. "You really are carrying out experiments on people, but you accuse us of doing so, even though we are using components that have been tested hundreds of thousands of times." The Gamaleya Institute sees itself as David in a battle against the Goliath of the international pharmaceuticals industry. They feel they are being treated unfairly.

Institute head Ginzburg says: "I can understand the skepticism. From outside, the process looked overly hasty, as though we were trying to be the first. That maybe played a role. But it was done in accordance with the rules for approval and against the background of the de facto war-like situation in which we found ourselves."
It was only in February 2021, half a year after the vaccine was approved, that the Phase III results were released in the journal The Lancet. Those trials indicated that Sputnik V has an efficacy of 91.6 percent, higher than the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca.
Criticism has quieted noticeably since then, but it hasn't gone away completely. Some researchers are demanding access to the raw data from the trials, others believe there are inconsistencies between the number of trial participants and the efficacy calculation, and still others have speculated about possible manipulations. Logunov has rejected all such allegations.


Naming the Vaccine

Kirill Dmitriev is the man responsible for marketing Sputnik V around the world. A former banker, Dmitriev went to both Stanford and Harvard, and his rapidly spoken Russian is frequently peppered with English. In describing the European reservations that he is trying to overcome, Dmitriev – speaking via Zoom from his office in Moscow – uses the terms "anxiety" and "overthinking."

Dmitriev is head of the multibillion-dollar, state-owned Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which invested in the development and production of the vaccine. Dmitriev is well-connected. His wife attended university and continues to work with Katerina Tikhonova, Putin's presumed daughter, who leads a foundation promoting innovation.


If the Gamaleya Institute is the birthplace of the COVID-19 vaccine, then Dmitriev is the one who christened it, having come up with the name Sputnik V. Initially, it was simply called Gam-Covid-Vac, which is how it is still referred to on Russian vaccine certificates. But it is bought and sold under the name Sputnik V.

 

The V stands for "vaccine," but also for "victory." And "Sputnik," of course, is a reference to Moscow's triumph in the race for space between the superpowers: That was the name of the first satellite launched into orbit by the Soviet Union in 1957. "Americans were surprised when they heard Sputnik's beeping," Dmitriev said back in July 2020. "It's the same with this vaccine. Russia will have got there first."

 

This kind of chest-pounding rhetoric did the vaccine no favors abroad. These days, Dmitriev is a bit less strident. "We underestimated the degree to which Sputnik would be associated with a race in the West." He says that in such a crisis, cooperation is more important than competition.

Currently, relations are particularly difficult with the European Union. "Europe has the impression that Sputnik V is doing all it can to force its way into the EU. As if Russia would absolutely need it. In truth, though, it's the other way around: Europe needs Sputnik," says Dmitriev. Russia, he says, must first take care of itself and it has plenty of other partners.

 

Dmitriev believes that the pharmaceutical concerns and their lobby are behind the reservations against Sputnik V. "They wanted to kill Sputnik from the very beginning. First, they claimed that we had stolen the recipe, then that we hadn't registered it properly, then that it was ineffective or dangerous," he says. "And now, with all of those objections cleared up, comes the final argument: It is a Russian vaccine."

 

Read more:

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/vaccine-diplomacy-the-surprising-success-of-sputnik-v-a-62e54cb2-3d76-4e1a-933b-9912e7c94e48

 

 

Meanwhile:

Die Rede ist von menschlichem Versagen: In einer US-Fabrik wurden laut einem Medienbericht die Inhaltsstoffe von zwei Impfpräparaten vermischt. Die Folgen könnten mittelfristig erheblich sein.

 

Even before Russia’s brand-new COVID-19 vaccine was tested on monkeys, the director of the institute that made it had injected himself. So had his staff. Fortunately, the shot has proven both safe and effective, boasting one of the highest efficacy rates of any COVID vaccine on the market. “Australia could have done worse than ordering it,” says epidemiologist Mike Toole. “But politics are what they are, and Russia hasn’t done itself any favours by being secretive.”

Indeed, as questions linger over how closely Russia is monitoring for rare side effects and export supply fails to live up to the Kremlin’s big promises, Russia’s new tool of influence on the world stage is proving volatile. It’s already brought down the prime minister of Slovakia, spawned both propaganda and anti-vax misinformation campaigns and triggered a defamation suit between Russia and Brazil. So, what is the Sputnik V vaccine and does it live up to the scientific heights of the satellite it was named after?

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/notably-clever-if-russia-s-vaccine-is-so-good-why-isn-t-it-more-widely-used-20210802-p58f0i.html

 

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The Russian-made Sputnik V Covid vaccine has demonstrated high long-term efficacy, according to data collected in San Marino. The jab remains around 80% effective against the disease six to eight months after being administered. 

The data was revealed on Wednesday by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the sovereign wealth fund which bankrolled the vaccine’s development.

Evaluation of the vaccine’s performance is based on analysis of real-world experience obtained in the Republic of San Marino. About 70% of the microstate’s 34,000-strong population have received the Russian-made vaccine.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/russia/541195-sputnik-long-term-efficacy/

 

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“In many countries and communities, we are concerned about the false sense of security that vaccines have ended the pandemic and that people who are vaccinated do not need to take any other precautions,” the WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Wednesday at a press conference on the Covid-19 crisis in Europe.

Tedros warned that “no country or region is out of the woods” and underlined the importance of making sure that the “right measures are in place to avert the worst consequences of any future waves.” He also called for proper sharing of the “fruits of science.”

On Tuesday, the WHO starkly predicted that more than 2 million people might die of Covid-19 in Europe over the coming winter and that most of the countries could see their health systems overwhelmed by the surge.

In light of coronavirus numbers spiraling across the region, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) made the decision to change its previous stance on booster vaccines, now recommending them for all adults.

Austria has already entered a new national 10-day lockdown while other countries, including Germany, are mulling new restrictive measures and even mandatory vaccination. This week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued travel advisories telling Americans to avoid travel to Germany and Denmark due to the high-risk Covid situation.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/541216-who-head-covid-vaccines/

 

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The latest breakthrough in COVID vaccines isn't using cutting edge technology or a radical new approach to stop the global spread of disease. 

Instead, a small team of researchers in the US have gone back to basics, with one key difference: their vaccine is patent-free. 

It means any drug maker can use the recipe freely to reproduce the vaccine, without any payment or complex licensing arrangements. 

Microbiologist Maria Bottazzi, her colleague Peter Hotez and their team at the Texas Children's Hospital's Center for Vaccine Development last month unveiled Corbevax, "the world's COVID-19 vaccine", and doctors say it could be a game changer.

 

How does the new vaccine work 

Corbevax is a protein subunit vaccine, a tried and tested method that stimulates an immune response by directly delivering bits of the virus the vaccine is designed to protect against.

Dr Bottazzi and Dr Hotez's team used yeast to "brew" their own COVID-19 spike proteins, which the coronavirus uses to infiltrate healthy cells to replicate and further assault the human body.

The vaccine teaches the human body to recognise the protein so it's better prepared if the real virus invades.

 

 

Read more:

..

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-24/covid-patent-free-vaccine-corbevax-could-be-game-changer/100848820

 

 

HELLO? Reinventing SPUTNIK V?????

 

 

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