A video promoting Russia’s vaccine against Covid-19, dubbed “Sputnik V”, envisions the drug as its space namesake zapping into oblivion a giant coronavirus engulfing the entire planet.
The computer-generated animation was published at the website created to explain and promote the Russian vaccine by the sponsor of its development, the Russian Direct Investment Fund. Earlier this week, the formula became the first in the world to be registered. On Saturday, it was announced the vaccine had been put into production.
The drug, which is officially named ‘Gam-COVID-Vak,’ is based on a time-tested platform and was approved after just two phases of clinical trials as an exception. This prompted some foreign government and medics to criticize Moscow, saying it was recklessly cutting corners.
A proper Phase III trial involving tens of thousands of volunteers will still be carried out, the head of the lab that developed the vaccine said on Sunday.
“We are submitting the first variant of the post-registration trial protocol on Monday. Considering the attention of the public and the media, I believe the Health Ministry will fast-track it and approve the proposal within a week. So in seven, maybe ten days the trial will be launched,” Aleksander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya National Research Center, told Russia’s TASS news agency.
