World science rejects the Russian vaccine

The scientific community is unanimous: the Russian registration of the anti-Covid Sputnik V vaccine, which arrived without completing all the testing phases, is reckless and based on little data. Doubts that the Russian Health Minister, Mikhail Murashko, defines as unfounded. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump relaunches made in the USA, announcing an agreement with Moderna for 100 million doses of the vaccine. What seems certain, at least according to the German Robert Koch Institut, is that the coronavirus vaccine will be ready as early as next autumn.

"Current forecasts suggest that it is possible to have a vaccine by autumn 2020", experts from the German government's reference institute wrote in a document published on the Internet. Who will win what seems to be an increasingly political and less scientific race is still unknown. Russia, with the announcement made by Vladimir Putin, is the first to register the vaccine against the new coronavirus, but skipping some stages. In fact, it has not yet completed phase 3, the one with which the vaccine is tested on a large number of people to verify its toxicity and efficacy. It is expected to start on August 12 on 2,000 people in Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Mexico, while mass production of the vaccine is expected to begin in September. It has only been tested on 76 volunteers so far, but the results of this trial have not been published.

For Francois Balloux, of University College London, "it is a rash and reckless decision. Mass vaccination with an inadequately tested vaccine is not ethical."
Immunologist Danny Altmann, of Imperial College London, fears that the vaccine may cause more "serious disease, which happens when the antibodies generated by the vaccine enter cells after exposure to the virus."

As Carlo Federico Perno, virologist and director of the Microbiology unit of the Bambino Gesù hospital in Rome points out, "in this case we have nothing in hand, no evidence of efficacy and lack of toxicity". Several Russian researchers are also critical.

Svetlana Zavidova, head of the Association of Clinical Trials Organizations in Russia, called it "ridiculous to give authorization based on this data. Without phase 3, it will not be clear whether or not the vaccine prevents Covid-19 and whether causes side effects, due to gaps in the Russian monitoring system on drug effects, which is not the best. " Furthermore, as Alexey Chumakov, a researcher at the Moscow institute of the same name, points out, "the Minister of Health does not seek the suggestions of the scientific community like the FDA". All doubts that Murashko defined as "absolutely unfounded. It seems that foreign colleagues are feeling the specific competitive advantage of the Russian invention and are trying to express certain absolutely groundless opinions".

Meanwhile, the United States, another competitor in the race, has reached a $ 1.5 billion agreement with Moderna for 100 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine, which provides the option for the United States to purchase an additional 400 million doses. . The answer on who will win this race, as the German Robert Koch Institut predicts, will come next autumn