Sputnik V could be India’s 3rd Covid vax: Experts

New Delhi, March 4 : To cater to the vaccination process of the world’s largest democracy, it would be pertinent to bring in safer and more effective vaccines from other countries.
However, on February 24, India’s drug authority had asked Dr Reddy’s, the Indian pharmaceutical company facilitating the trials in the country, to supply data on immunogenicity for going ahead with the approval process. However, experts across the country have been questioning the approval procedure given the fact that the country gave approval to two homegrown vaccines in January this year for emergency use based on modified standards. For instance, Covaxin was granted restricted approval in “clinical trial mode” without any efficacy data.
“The fact is that Covid-19 poses a significant threat to both health and economy globally and it is only by avoiding nationalistic policies and embracing global co-operation that countries across the world can beat the pandemic. It should be a global effort for humanity. For example, India is already acknowledged as a key global production hub for having the largest vaccines manufacturing capacities in the world. Similarly, India should provide equitable access to its people to avail the best Covid-19 vaccines as developed across the world,” said Dr. A.M. Deshmukh, President, Microbiologist Society, India.
Last month, the Lancet, one of the most reputed journals in the world, published the outcomes of the phase III of the clinical trials of Sputnik V. The trial results show a consistent strong protective effect across all participant age groups.
Also known as Gam-COVID-Vac, the vaccine uses a heterologous recombinant adenovirus approach using adenovirus 26 (Ad26) and adenovirus 5 (Ad5) as vectors for the expression of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein. The use of two varying serotypes, which are given 21 days apart, is intended to overcome any pre-existing adenovirus immunity in the population. Among the major COVID vaccines in development to date, only Gam-COVID-Vac uses this approach.
Sputnik V has demonstrated an efficacy rate of 91.6 per cent in the interim analysis of the Phase 3 clinical trials, which included data on 19,866 volunteers in Russia, who received both the first and second dose of the vaccine.