Early results from trials of a Covid vaccine developed in Russia suggest it could be 92% effective.
The data is based on 20 cases of Covid-19 from 16,000 volunteers given the Sputnik V vaccine or a dummy injection.
While some scientists welcomed the news, others said the data had been rushed out too early.
It comes after Pfizer and BioNTech said their vaccine could prevent 90% of people getting Covid-19, based on a study of 43,500 people.
Although the Sputnik data is based on fewer people being vaccinated and fewer cases of Covid developing during the trial, it does confirm promising results from earlier tests.
The Sputnik V vaccine, developed at the National Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, is currently going through phase III clinical trials in Belarus, UAE, Venezuela and India.
So far there are no safety issues, with Russian researchers saying there were “no unexpected adverse events” 21 days after volunteers received their first of two injections.
But there’s still a long way to go – this is interim data and, like the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trial, the data is still being collected and the full results have not yet been published or scrutinised.
These are questions that still need answering for both vaccines – for example, how well does it protect older people who are most at risk and how long does protection from the vaccine last?
The Russian researchers say their data will be published “in one of the leading international peer-reviewed medical journals”.
If it’s positive, it means there will almost certainly be more than one way of protecting people against the virus.
