The makers of Russia’s flagship Covid-19 vaccine said on Tuesday that interim results from phase 3 trials showed efficacy rates of “above 95 per cent”, overperforming some of the most effective of the western vaccines that have released results.
Moscow’s state-run Gamaleya Institute said data from nearly 19,000 volunteers showed the vaccine’s efficacy was 91.4 per cent 28 days after they received the first dose of the two-shot jab, rising beyond 95 per cent in preliminary results after 42 days.
The Kremlin is trumpeting the two-shot jab, known as Sputnik V after the Soviet satellite that kicked off the space race, as an alternative to vaccines from Moderna, Oxford university and AstraZeneca, and Pfizer/BioNTech.