Coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V: Russia eyeing to produce COVID vaccine in India

Russia became the first country in the world to launch a COVID-19 vaccine last week (August 12) when a vaccine prototype produced by Gameleya Institute and the Russian defence ministry was registered successfully. Ever since, the vaccine in question, 'Sputnik V' has been marred by controversies and speculations.

Even though both the clinical trials and the launch were met with attacks from critics within the country and outside, the vaccine's timely launch and success rates proved that we might be inching a bit closer to having a vaccine ready to fight the pandemic without any herd immunity in place. Many countries were said to be in talks with Russian agencies to expedite trials and get priority access to the vaccine doses. India, too, has a crucial part to play here. While India, with the third-largest division of COVID cases in the world, is overseeing trials and developments of homegrown as well as internationally made vaccines, there are chances that India may be getting Sputnik V before the world.

Speaking to IndiaToday recently, Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of Russian Direct Investment Fund, the company responsible for investing into the making of the most talked-about vaccine right now, said that while Russia has received proposals from a lot of countries for trials and production, the Soviet nation is eyeing to tap into India's vast production facilities to accelerate work on vaccines.

Praising India's medical and scientific know-how, Dmitriev said that a strategic partnership could speed up the availability of vaccine and deliver a safer one at that.

"We have great cooperation with India, Indian scientists and Indian manufacturers. They understand our technology...Moscow is keen to manufacture COVID vaccine Sputnik V in India."

According to reports from Russian agencies, the first batch of vaccine doses, which will be administered to doctors, teachers and other frontline workers will be ready in the next two weeks time. Russian President Vladimir Putin's daughter was also said to be the first one to have received a jab of the vaccine and plans are further underway to have millions of doses ready for the population.

In the past, it was also revealed that Indian pharmaceutical giants sought technical details about the vaccine's working. India is also hosting phase II/III trials of Oxford-AstraZeneca produced AZD1222 vaccine, which is being done by Serum Institute of India. Meanwhile, WHO, along with other health experts are still unsure of the vaccine's efficacy and safety concerns.

Russia's interest in India's production facilities comes as no surprise. India is one of the global leaders in the world of vaccine production. Nearly 60% of the vaccines supplied to the world are produced, developed or manufactured in the country. Apart from this, the large population could help experts recruit volunteers for the vaccine trials in an easier way and test out any side-effects. The cost of manufacturing and conducting clinical trials in India is also cheaper than that in other developed countries.

Despite claims that the Russian vaccine might not be the most effective owing to the short trial timeline which was followed to develop the vaccine, the CEO was confident that the vaccine would be able to inoculate and protect the world against the pandemic.

"The vaccine is safe and reliable. I have been inoculated along with my entire family, including my 90-year old parents. Our target is to inoculate 40 million people in Russia. The vaccine platform has been developed over the last six years and hence has no side effects."

Dmitriev also said that the vaccine, which has been developed using an adenovirus platform is the safest of them all, adding that authorities are hopeful of seeing 2-3 lakh people vaccinated in the coming months.

"This is the safest delivery mechanism among all vaccines. The human adenovirus has been chosen as the safest delivery vector based upon 20 years of Russian research. Tens of thousands of people have been administered the adenovirus vaccine over the past 20 years with no side effects such as cancer or infertility,"

Meanwhile, Russian scientists are also said to be in talks with as many as twenty other countries to simultaneously conduct trials and ramp up manufacturing facilities for its novel vaccine. There are also reports that phase II/III trials, which will involve a larger pool of candidates will be held in the coming months in countries outside Russia.