MOSCOW: According to a report in Reuters news agency, the first batch of the Russian vaccine for COVID-19 has been produced. Russia on August 11 claimed that a vaccine being developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute was ready and had been approved. It’s the first novel Coronavirus vaccine to be approved for public use.
The Reuters report said Russia would roll out the vaccine by the end of this month. That is earlier than its previous announcements about making the vaccine available by September and starting mass inoculations by October.
The Russian announcement has been received with some amount of scepticism in the global scientific community because of the fact that vaccine has been approved without the mandatory phase-III human trials.
The vaccine has been named “Sputnik V” in homage to the world’s first satellite launched by the Soviet Union. President Vladimir Putin has assured the public that it is safe, adding that one of his daughters had taken it as a volunteer and felt good afterwards.
