Russia says its COVID vaccine is 95% effective. So why is there still Western resistance to it?

Whether the V stands for “five” or simply the letter “V” has never been fully explained, but in both cases the association is obvious: the original Sputnik satellite won Russia’s space race more than 60 years ago. , and this new Sputnik will make Russia first in this new race to defeat the pandemic.

With its hyperbolic announcements and an ambitious schedule – some would say unattainable -, the Putin government has attempted to show that the development of Sputnik V has made Russia a vaccine superpower.

WATCH | Russia claims its COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective:

Russia says preliminary results for its COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, show a 95% efficacy rate after being tested on more than 18,000 volunteers. 1:54

Already, among the reputed “primates” Russia states: the first COVID vaccine in the world to be registered; the first vaccine anywhere to be announced as part of a national vaccination campaign; and test results that rank it first in terms of efficacy.

Not to be outdone, when Pfizer and BioNTech became the first Western vaccine manufacturer to announce promising results, with 90% efficacy, days later the makers of Sputnik V claimed their vaccine was even better – by two percentage points.

Some Western experts perceived an opacity regarding the Russian approval process, combined with the rush to register it even before trials began, damaged the vaccine’s credibility from the start.

Russia has licensed it based on initial trials involving only 76 people, while usually most approvals come after phase 3 studies involving tens of thousands of subjects.

Even after those early results were published in the reputable medical journal The Lancet, a group of 37 scientists from 12 countries wrote the publication questioning the data.

Russian officials and state media experts denounced skepticism as evidence of an inherent “Western bias” against anything Russian and accused the US and British media of organizing a smear campaign to steal potential international clients.

Positive results

Fast forward to this week and news from the developer of Sputnik, the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, of very positive results from a much larger sample of data.

The Russian vaccine is 91.4 percent effective from an analysis of more than 18,000 people, a statement on the Sputnik V website said. The vaccine’s effectiveness jumped to 95 percent after 42 days.

Additionally, at around $ 20 US per person, Gamalyea says the Russian vaccine is one of the cheapest on the market, making it an attractive option for poorer countries with large populations.

Like the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and its partner AstraZeneca, the Russian vaccine uses human adenovirus vectors, or common cold genes, to trigger an immune response in the body. A first shot is followed by a booster three weeks later.

News of the findings prompted a change of tone from many Western vaccine experts.

“The data [is] compatible with the vaccine that is reasonably effective, “said Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“These findings are consistent with what we see with other vaccines, because the really big message for global health scientists is that this disease [COVID-19] can be addressed by vaccines “.

Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, agrees.

“I see no reason to doubt it [the results]”Jones told CBC News in an interview.

“I agree their initial results caused consternation, but I don’t think it’s because they weren’t valid. They were released a bit early.

“I think it will be a useful vaccine.”

Their positive ratings are based on the knowledge that the method of administering the adenovirus underlying the vaccine produced by Gamaleya has proven successful over and over again.

What wasn’t clear was whether the COVID-19 virus would be resistant, but Evans says positive results from other drug companies strongly suggest that the Russian vaccine will likely work well too.

“We now have four vaccines that have some effectiveness [on COVID-19], which is far beyond what we’ve ever had for an HIV or malaria vaccine, ”Evans said.

A question of trust

Ultimately, it states that whether a country chooses to buy the vaccine made in Russia depends on whether they have faith in the science behind it and trust the regulators who approved it.

The Russian vaccine is being treated more skeptically, Evans said, because trials in the US and Europe are much more open and transparent than they are in Russia.

“We don’t know how closely their processes are monitored and how carefully they are reported. We don’t know,” he said.

“But the countries that are buying it are buying it on the confidence that the Russians have produced something.”

Enrico Bucci, an Italian biologist who was part of the original group of scientists who questioned early Russian results, is among those who continue to believe that Russian developers have not been sufficiently transparent about their data.

For example, it says the 91.4% success claim is based on only 39 people in the sample of 18,000 people who contracted COVID-19.

“The sample is too small to claim an efficacy rate,” Bucci told CBC News.

Furthermore, he said, it is unclear where these 39 people came from, how old they were and whether the results of studies in one country were mixed with those from another place.

The University of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine – which reported a success rate of around 70% – has come under similar criticism about how its study data has been presented, and its developers have now agreed to run new studies.

So far, Hungary is the only member of the European Union to have signed up to the Russian vaccine, although Russian media reports that 50 nations have already signed agreements for the vaccine or are in the process of negotiating them.

On Friday, Russia announced a partnership with Indian pharmaceutical company Hetero to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine by the end of 2021.

Canada has announced agreements signed with five vaccine manufacturers, but the list does not include Sputnik V.

Gamalyea’s initial estimates that Russia would be able to produce 200 million doses of Sputnik V by the end of next month have turned out to be wildly optimistic. The health ministry now says it may be able to produce two million doses, at best.

Uncertain Russians

Since the summer, the Russian health ministry has promised a national vaccination campaign was imminent but has been slow to launch it.

President Vladimir Putin said one of his daughters was among the first to receive the vaccine, although this week the Kremlin acknowledged that Putin himself did not.

A spokesperson said it would be irresponsible for the head of state to get an “uncertified” vaccine, although the distinction the official was trying to make between a registered and a certified vaccine was unclear.

The mayor of Moscow said authorities plan to set up 300 vaccination centers in December and the plan is to have as many people vaccinated in the capital as possible.

Independent public opinion polls suggest that many Russians remain unsure about the vaccine and whether they will actually take it. In early November, the Levada Center electoral group reported that 59% of Russians may refuse to get vaccinated.

On Russian state TV, however, criticism or in-depth questions about any assumptions underlying the government’s claims about Sputnik V have been largely absent.

As is normal in television talk shows, the discussion is framed in geopolitical terms.

Their 60 minutes program (no relation to the US program of the same name) also cited a CBC News report of The national team as alleged evidence of Western bias, with the host suggesting it was an example of “active propaganda” against Sputnik V.

Indeed, the report contained comments from Prof. Evans, the British expert, which suggested that the vaccine worked and was most likely effective. But his clips were cut from what was shown on Russian TV.