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Opinion | Evidence suggests Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective but questions about data remain
- Like the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the basis for the vaccine is a harmless form of adenovirus, one of several viruses that can cause the common cold
- Sputnik V doesn’t require the ultra-cold temperatures like the mRNA-based vaccines, which makes it an attractive candidate for many countries
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Russia was the first country to register a Covid-19 vaccine, with its health ministry giving emergency approval to the Sputnik V vaccine in August 2020.
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This decision was met with scepticism from the international scientific community because it came a month before results of phase 1 and 2 trials were published.
Growing data from clinical trials and real world roll-outs suggests the vaccine is safe and very effective. But there are several outstanding questions around the vaccine, such as whether it’s associated with the very rare blood clotting condition seen with AstraZeneca’s vaccine, and how well it performs against variants of the coronavirus.
So what kind of vaccine is Sputnik V, how does it work, and what data are we missing?
How does Sputnik V work?
Sputnik V was designed by The Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology. It has its very own Twitter account advertising its status as the “world’s first registered Covid-19 vaccine” and approval in 69 countries including Russia, South Korea, Argentina and the UAE.
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