Elite club: Russia secretly tested its coronavirus vaccine among the affluent as early as April
A lab technician wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) takes reagent bottles to perform vaccine tests
The race to produce and deploy vaccinations against COVID-19 has amped up across the world. Be it “Operation Warp Speed” in the US, India’s Novaxin trials starting July 20, or Russia’s promise to begin vaccinating people starting next month - administrations across the globe are getting impatient and want to roll out the vaccine as quickly as possible to curb the ill effects of the virus, and somewhat return to a pre-pandemic lifestyle.
Russia has done a peculiar thing yet again. Its experimental vaccine developed by the state-run Gamaleya had begun testing among the country’s elite circle as early as April, reports suggest.
Early rollout?
The country clearly wants to be the first to inoculate people against the virus. The pilot vaccine will certainly give edge to whichever country does it first. In fact, reports have begun surfacing that Russia intends to roll out the vaccine for public use as early as next month, even before the phase3 trials are completed.
As per the Bloomberg report, top executives at companies like United Company Rusal alongside affluent officials and industry professionals began getting vaccinated as early as April.
The vaccine in development is being funded by the state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund and is also being backed by the military. Just last week, the vaccine completed phase 1 trials undertaken on military personnel. The next round has already begun.
Only for the elite - yet!
Even though phase 3 trials will begin only by the first week of August, the vaccine may be available to the public at the same time. Besides Russia, the vaccine is being tested in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Similar to China’s CanSino Biologics vaccine, the Gamaleya’s vaccine will imbibe a viral vector with a protein of COVID-19 to trigger an immune response.
The US, UK, and Canada have all accused Russia of attempting to break into their classified vaccine efforts to “steal” information.
Bloomberg was able to confirm that scores of elite Russians indeed received the shots, but did not want their names to go public. Even though the people aren’t part of any official studies, the results of the vaccine are monitored as they would under a study.
Gamaleya says that the immunisation effects of the vaccine will last upto two years.
Russia currently has the world’s fourth-most coronavirus cases, with over 750,000 cases reported so far.