Interim results have found that Russia’s coronavirus vaccine has an efficacy rate of 91.6 percent against symptomatic patients.

According to a report by The Guardian, Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine—the first-ever jab to be approved globally—saw no serious adverse events associated with three-fourths of the 20,000 adults who volunteered to get immunized.

However, most reported adverse events were mild, including flu-like symptoms, pain on the injected part of the body, and weakness or low energy.

Sputnik V, backed by the Russian Direct Investment Fund, marks as the fourth vaccine for which phase 3 trial has been published in a peer-reviewed health journal.

According to the report, Sputnik V is administered in two injections 21 days apart. During the 21 days after the first dose, 16 out of 14,964 infected patients received the vaccine, while 62 out of 4,902 individuals received a placebo.

The trial included 2,144 participants aged 60 and beyond. In this subset, the vaccine was said to have a 91.8-percent efficacy against symptomatic disease.

Four of the vaccinated patients died during the trial, with one belonging to the placebo group due to a stroke, while the remaining three were from the vaccine group. Death from the latter, however, was not owed to receiving the vaccines as one patient had a fracture while the remaining two had underlying conditions and developed symptoms of Covid-19 four to five after the first dose of the vaccine, which indicated they had been infected before the trial.

Similar to the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, Sputnik V is based on a modified version of adenovirus, a common cold virus. It is tailored to carry genetic instructions for making the coronavirus spike protein, which it passes to human cells.

The manufactured coronavirus spike protein then triggers an immune response to protect against coronavirus disease.

However, the second dose of Sputnik V uses another human adenovirus to try to trigger a stronger and longer-term immune response. They would have to be followed for up to 48 days after the first jab to check the durability of the vaccine.

Employing a different vector for the second dose is designed to diminish the risk of the immune system developing resistance to the initial vector.

According to the report, further research would have to be done for asymptomatic patients.

PHOTO BY AREK SOCHA/FROM PIXABAY