Study: Russia’s Sputnik V Vaccine Appears Safe, Effective

Russian scientists say the country's Sputnik V vaccine¹ appears safe and effective against COVID-19. The news will help sell the vaccine to other countries in the race against the pandemic.

Researchers say the vaccine is about 91 percent effective based on a trial involving about 20,000 people in Russia. It appears to prevent people who have received the shot from becoming ill with COVID-19. It remains² unclear, however, if Sputnik V can stop the virus from spreading.

The study was first announced last December. It was published Tuesday in the British medical paper The Lancet.

Scientists who are not linked to the research have criticized Russian efforts to produce a COVID-19 vaccine. They said it was made and released in a hurry without any information.

Last August, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on national television that Russia became the first country to approve a COVID-19 vaccine. He said one of his daughters had already received the two shots. At the time, the vaccine had only been tested on less than 50 people.

"But the outcome reported here is clear," British scientists Ian Jones and Polly Roy wrote about the study. They said it is another vaccine to "join the fight" against the coronavirus.

Kirill Dmitriev is head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, or RDIF, the organization that paid for the vaccine's development.

"Russia was right from the very beginning," he said.

The fund says Sputnik V has been approved for emergency use in more than 12 other countries. They include the former Soviet³ republics of Belarus, Armenia and Turkmenistan; Latin American nations including Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela; African nations such as Algeria as well as Serbia, Iran, Palestine and United Arab Emirates.

An RDIF spokesman told The Associated Press that more than 50 countries have requested to buy 2.4 billion doses.

The vaccine study

The latest study is based on research involving about 20,000 people over 18 at hospitals in Moscow between September and November. About 75 percent of the people received two shots of the vaccine 21 days apart and the rest got a placebo⁴ – a shot with an inactive substance.

Serious side effects were rare in both groups. Only four deaths were reported, although none were considered to come from the vaccine.

The study included more than 2,100 people over age 60 and the vaccine appeared to be about 92 percent effective in them. The research is continuing. But Russia's Health Ministry⁵ said in December it was cutting the size of the study from the planned 40,000 subjects to about 31,000 because some people left the study.

The first shot of the Russian vaccine uses a common cold-causing adenovirus to carry genes⁶ that prepare the human body to fight against COVID-19. That is similar to the two-shot vaccine developed by Britain's Oxford⁷ University-AstraZeneca.

Unlike the British vaccine, Sputnik V uses a different version of adenovirus for its second shot.

Alexander Edwards is an associate professor in biomedical technology at Britain's University of Reading. He said the two different versions of adenovirus led to higher immune response against the coronavirus. Edwards is not connected to the Russian study.

Polly Roy is a professor of virology at the London School of Hygiene⁸ and Tropical Medicine. She said there should no longer be any concerns about the Russian vaccine.

She said the high level of antibodies made by Sputnik V suggest that it could also protect against some of the new COVID-19 variants¹⁰. But more studies are needed to confirm that.

"Initially¹¹, I had some concerns about what they were saying and thought they were getting too much publicity¹², but the data are now very strong," Roy said.

Last month, Putin ordered a large vaccination¹³ campaign to begin in Russia.

Words in This Story

dose – n. the amount of medication a person take at one time

placebo – n. a pill without medicine used in medical tests

immune – adj. resistant¹⁴ to an infection

variant⁹ – n. a different form of something

initially - adv. to begin with

publicity – n. notice or attention given to someone or something by the media

1 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

2 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

3 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

4 placebo   

n.安慰剂；宽慰话

参考例句：

• The placebo has been found to work with a lot of different cases.人们已发现安慰剂能在很多不同的病例中发挥作用。
• The placebo effect refers to all the observable behaviors caused by placebo.安慰剂效应是指由安慰剂所引起的可观察的行为。

5 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

6 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

7 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

8 hygiene   

n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic）

参考例句：

• Their course of study includes elementary hygiene and medical theory.他们的课程包括基础卫生学和医疗知识。
• He's going to give us a lecture on public hygiene.他要给我们作关于公共卫生方面的报告。

9 variant   

adj.不同的，变异的；n.变体，异体

参考例句：

• We give professional suggestions according to variant tanning stages for each customer.我们针对每位顾客不同的日晒阶段，提供强度适合的晒黑建议。
• In a variant of this approach,the tests are data- driven.这个方法的一个变种，是数据驱动的测试。

10 variants   

n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体

参考例句：

• Those variants will be preserved in the'struggle for existence". 这些变异将在“生存竞争”中被保留下来。 来自辞典例句
• Like organisms, viruses have variants, generally called strains. 与其他生物一样，病毒也有变种，一般称之为株系。 来自辞典例句

11 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

12 publicity   

n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告

参考例句：

• The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。

13 vaccination   

n.接种疫苗，种痘

参考例句：

• Vaccination is a preventive against smallpox.种痘是预防天花的方法。
• Doctors suggest getting a tetanus vaccination every ten years.医生建议每十年注射一次破伤风疫苗。

14 resistant   

adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的

参考例句：

• Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
• They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。