Dr. Fauci doubts Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Dr. Anthony Fauci has serious doubts about the safety and effectiveness of the Russian-made COVID-19 vaccine.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin bragged about being the first country to develop and approve the use of a coronavirus vaccine.
• Called Sputnik V, the vaccine has not completed clinical trials and was only tested to a small group of people.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US’ top infectious diseases expert is not excited about Sputnik V, Russia’s coronavirus vaccine.

On Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin announced that his country was the first to approve an inoculation.

The announcement was met with speculations from experts who expressed doubts about its effectiveness and safety.

“I hope that the Russians have actually, definitively proven that the vaccine is safe and effective. I seriously doubt that they’ve done that,” Fauci, told Deborah Roberts of ABC News for a National Geographic event to be broadcast Thursday, CNN reported.

Fauci, 79, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said having a vaccine and proving that it is safe and effective are two different things.

“We have half a dozen or more vaccines,” he said. “So if we wanted to take the chance of hurting a lot of people or giving them something that doesn’t work, we could start doing this, you know, next week if we wanted to. But that’s not the way it works.”

Fauci said Americans must keep in mind that the US has safety and efficacy standards in place — while the makers of the Russian vaccine have not yet released any data from human trials.

There are 28 vaccines in worldwide human trials in the COVID-19 vaccine race.

Dr. Ohid Yaqub, a senior lecturer at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex in the UK, criticized Russia’s “half-baked” vaccine which he described as “little better than water.” He added that Sputnik V did not undergo Phase 3 trials.

“I would hope that other countries are not drawn into such pork-barrel vaccine nationalism. The less that vaccine development looks like this, the better,” Yaqub told the outlet.

“Decision making should published, open to scrutiny, and free from flag-waving,” he added. “It’s unprecedented to completely skip a Phase 3 trial like this in modern medicine.

“There are other ways to control this disease without taking that risk. We’re not at the stage where we need to start giving out half-baked vaccines,” he said.

Russia pushed back Wednesday on the criticism, calling it “information warfare,” CNBC reported.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko reportedly said allegations that the vaccine was unsafe were groundless and fueled by competition.

“It seems our foreign colleagues are sensing the specific competitive advantages of the Russian drug and are trying to express opinions that in our opinion are completely groundless,” Murashko said, Reuters reported.

He said the vaccine, which was developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, would be administered on a voluntary basis.

Putin said the Health Ministry gave the green light to the vaccine after it underwent the necessary tests — and said one of his two adult daughters had been inoculated.

“We should be grateful to those who have taken this first step, which is very important for our country and the whole world,” Putin said.

No proof was provided and scientists in Russia warned that additional testing would be necessary to prove it is safe and effective.

Nevertheless, officials said vaccination of doctors could start as early as this month and mass vaccinations may begin as early as October.

Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Institute, said clinical trials would be published once they have been assessed by Russia’s experts.

— an homage to the Soviet Union’s first orbital satellite in 1957, when the space race was launched.

Source: New York Post