Russia's Sputnik V expected to protect from Covid-19 for at least TWO YEARS, vaccine developer says after Lancet publishes trial

Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is expected to have a prolonged immunization effect, providing protection against the deadly disease for at least two years, the formula's developer told journalists, on Tuesday.

The estimated duration of the vaccine's effects was revealed by Alexander Gintsburg, the head of the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, which developed Russia's pioneering Sputnik V vaccine.

We hold very high hopes, backed by the facts already collected experimentally, that the duration of the vaccine's effect... will last not several months or even a year, but at least for two years or more.

Gintsburg held a press briefing alongside other officials marking the publication of the preliminary results of the Phase III trial in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet earlier in the day.

Apart from the estimated lengthy protection it gives against Covid-19, the vaccine also boasts a lack of known severe side effects. Except for an occasional rise of body temperature or minor pains around the injection spot, the vaccine did not cause any long-term adverse effects during the trials.

“Clinical trials have fully confirmed the results that were obtained earlier, in the first and second phases,” Gintsburg stated. “These results indicate the complete safety of this vaccine. No serious complications were found among nearly 30,000 subjects, apart from those non-significant side effects, which were noted during first and second phases.”

Publication of the Phase III trial's results has been already hailed by multiple international scientists. For instance, president of Argentina's society of infectologists, Omar Sued, hailed the vaccine's safety and high efficacy.

“The paper, published in The Lancet, confirms successful results and provides additional information about the efficacy and the safety of this vaccine in different subgroups,” Sued stated.

“From the public health's point of view, the efficacy of the vaccine was very high. The safety profile was very good. The dissemination of this information is vital for informing the scaling up and rollout of this vaccine worldwide.”

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