The Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine will be effective against the Indian strain of COVID-19. This was announced by the head of the center that developed the drug. Gamalei Alexander Gunzburg.
“The Russian vaccine, of course, will cope with this mutation, since Sputnik V, as a result of booster vaccination, creates a very high supply of neutralizing antibodies,” Gintsburg explained in an interview with Interfax.
Earlier on the same day, it became known that Russia would soon receive a sample of the Indian strain of COVID-19 from foreign colleagues. As specified in the research center “Vector”, a comprehensive study of the properties of the new strain will take about two months.
At the same time, it was noted there that the effectiveness of the EpiVacCorona coronavirus vaccine should not be less in relation to the Indian strain.
The fact that a new type of COVID-19 with a double mutation was identified in India became known on March 24. At the same time, British, Brazilian and South African mutations of the coronavirus also entered this country.
On April 5, it was reported that the first case of infection with the Indian strain of coronavirus was recorded in the United States. Later, cases of infection with it were also identified in the UK, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic.
On the eve, Kamil Khafizov, head of the scientific group for the development of new methods for diagnosing human diseases at the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor, said that the Indian variant of coronavirus infection with double mutations has not yet been found in Russia.
The Russian drug “Sputnik V” is one of the three global vaccines against COVID-19 in terms of the number of approvals received by state regulators. The drug was developed by the specialists of the Gamaleya Center. Sputnik V was registered in August last year. It became the first coronavirus vaccine in Russia and in the world.