Russian Sputnik vaccine unleashes a wave of disinformation in the EU

A Hungarian military man shows a vial of Russian Sputnik V vaccine on Friday at the Armed Forces medical center in Budapest.ZSOLT SZIGETVARY / AFP

The Russian Sputnik V vaccine against covid-19 is 91.6% effective, according to the scientific journal

The Lancet

.

But its results are equally surprising in terms of the generation of hoaxes and hoaxes, some of them propagated by the Russian authorities or the fund that manages the drug.

The most successful disinformation campaign so far has revolved around the authorization of Sputnik by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), a process that according to Moscow is already underway, but that according to European authorities has not even been initiated.

The European Commission has had to go out this Friday to the passage of the information that one day after another collects the alleged opening of the Sputnik authorization process in the EMA.

"I can confirm that the EMA has not received any request about Sputnik, neither for the review nor for the provisional commercial authorization, so that all the information that indicates otherwise is clearly incorrect," said the spokesman for the Health area of ​​the European Commission, Stefan de Keersmaecker.

"This is a clear and unambiguous statement based on our contacts with the EMA," added Commission Chief Spokesman Eric Mamer.

Brussels is thus trying to settle what until now seemed a misunderstanding about the procedures of the European agency, but which has already reached the dimensions of a

fake news

spread intensely and deliberately.

The alleged arrival of the Russian vaccine file to the EMA has been circulating at least since January 29, an erroneous story first spread by Russian media and later picked up day after day in numerous European media.

The avalanche gained momentum on February 2, when

The Lancet

magazine

endorsed the results of Sputnik V.

The hoax has also spread profusely through social networks, one of the privileged channels, according to Brussels, for the disinformation campaigns that the Russian authorities periodically launch to try to destabilize the EU or undermine, at least, the credibility of the institutions community and national.

In this case, however, the campaign rather aims to pressure the EMA to accelerate the possible green light, a step that would open up to Russia the possibility of producing the antidote on a large scale on European soil.

The EMA has tried in vain to clarify the possible confusion, denying time after time the alleged processing to all journalists who have approached the Agency to verify the news.

The European health authority even had to issue a statement last Wednesday to specify that it had not received any request from the Russian research center Gamaleya, which is the one that has developed Sputnik V. Even so, the hoax has continued to spread unstoppably.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the sovereign wealth fund of Russia that has financed the vaccine and is dealing with the registries and contracts with the countries, has contributed to the information contagion by repeating again and again that it has already presented the request and urge the EMA to speed up the procedure.

A spokesperson for the fund refers to a screenshot of an alleged application submitted on a European Union website.

The screenshot, released by the Russian fund on its Twitter account, includes an acknowledgment of receipt of the alleged request dated January 29.

But the alleged procedure does not appear on the EMA website but on the page of the Network of Heads of Drug Agencies (HMA).

The Network is a forum made up of national authorities, the EMA and the European Commission and dedicated to the coordination of regulatory aspects of the sector.

Moscow has charged against any criticism - those who demanded more data in the face of opacity and conspiracy - assuring that Sputnik V is measured with double standards for being Russian.

And they have spoken of "Russophobia."

This Friday, Kirill Dmitriev, director of the RDIF, assured that the competitors and various political forces are trying to prevent the approval of Gamaleya's immunization.

“Many other companies, competitors, political forces in many countries are trying to interfere with our approval,” Dimitriev said in an interview with the state channel Russia 24. “We even know that several countries are planning provocations against the Sputnik V vaccine, but we are moving forward and, of course, Sputnik V is one of the most recognized vaccines in the world, ”he added.

Increase production

There are already 27 countries that have granted emergency authorization to Sputnik V, the last Kazakhstan, this Friday.

But within the EU, only Hungary has given the green light to the Russian vaccine, allowing its use only in that country.

The Gamaleya center and the RDIF urgently need the authorization of the EMA if they want to Europeanize their vaccine.

The prevailing confusion over authorization has overshadowed what industry sources say is Russia's biggest problem with its vaccine: the production chain.

Moscow scored the goal last August to announce the world's first vaccine, registered long before the end of clinical trials.

But since then it has only vaccinated 2.7% of its population, below the EU (4.3%) and almost half that of Spain (5%), whose campaigns did not begin until the end of the year.

These sources point out that the delays and the controversy surrounding the presentation of the documents to the EMA will not be solved until Moscow has solved all the production problems in the EU and for the EU.

For the foreign market, in principle, agreements have been signed that will make it possible to develop immunizations in India, South Korea or Kazakhstan.

But the Russian laboratory has been seeking collaboration with a European pharmaceutical company for weeks that could give it the necessary muscle for mass production.

Germany has been willing to collaborate and one of its laboratories, IDT Biologika, is in the crosshairs of a possible agreement to produce Sputnik V. But without the EMA's approval of the Russian drug, production in Europe seems craving complicated and marketing impossible.

Disinformation and the opacity of data and research - a very common thing in Russia, but which today collides with the hunger for knowledge and media coverage - have surrounded Sputnik V from the beginning. And have even weighed down the vaccination in Russia where last December 58% of citizens said they would not get it, according to a survey by the independent center Levada.

Although in recent weeks, especially after the publication of the report in

The Lancet

, there is more influx at vaccination points, where the vaccine is administered free of charge.

Sometimes that misinformation has even come from the Government, as when Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golíkova, in charge of the operation against the coronavirus, assured last December that alcohol is contraindicated for 42 days after being immunized with Sputnik V. That triggered thousands of comments.

However, there are hardly any studies on alcohol consumption and vaccines, and the Gamaleya Institute had to come to terms later to specify that what was recommended - and this is stated in the instructions sent to health centers - is not to drink for three days after each of the two doses is injected.