The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) on Tuesday approved the use of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus in the country. This is the third vaccine get emergency use authorisation in the country after Covishield, developed by Oxford University-AstraZeneca and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
With this move, India has become the 60th country to approve Sputnik V. According to RDIF, the Sputnik V’s rollout in India will begin by end of April or early May.
Who has developed this vaccine?
It has been developed by the Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow and was registered in Russia in August 2020 as Gam-COVID-Vac.
The ‘V’ at the end of its name stands for alphabet ‘V’, and not the Roman numeral for five. The vaccine uses two different viruses that cause the common cold (adenovirus) in humans.
At what temperature does it need to be stored?
Sputnik V needs to be stored at 2-8 degrees Celsius, which means it can be stored in a regular refrigerator and there’s no need to invest in additional cold-chain infrastructure.
How many doses need to be administered?
People will get two doses of the vaccine, as is the case with Just like Covishield and Covaxin. These doses will have to be administered 21 days apart.
Is the vaccine effective?
Sputnik V has a shown an efficacy rate of 91.5 percent, the highest after Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech’s candidates. In India, trials were conducted before it got the approval.
Is it known to have any side-effects?
On April 6, Russian state-backed news agency TASS quoted the country’s Health Minister Mikhail Murashko as saying that side effects from the Sputnik V vaccine have been reported in 0.1 percent of cases.
“The development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticised for unseemly haste, corner cutting, and an absence of transparency. But the outcome reported here is clear and the scientific principle of vaccination is demonstrated, which means another vaccine can now join the fight to reduce the incidence of Covid-19,” Professor Ian Jones, University of Reading, and Professor Polly Roy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK, had written in The Lancet in August 2020.
How much does it cost?
While the cost of Sputnik V in India is not cleat at the moment, in the international market it is selling for $10 (Rs 750) per shot.
Who is manufacturing it in India?
In India, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories collaborated with the Russian sovereign fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to conduct the bridge clinical trials for Sputnik V in India. It is expected to distribute up to 250 million doses in India. RDIF has manufacturing agreements with Gland Pharma, Hetero Biopharma, Stelis Biopharma, Virchow Biotech, and Panacea Biotech to produce over 850 million Sputnik V doses in India.
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