Virologist Angela Rasmussen on the controversy surrounding Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine
By all accounts, the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Russia’s Gamaleya Institute, called Sputnik V, has looked really good. In a study published in The Lancet in February, the vaccine’s efficacy was 91.6%, putting it among the most effective vaccines for this pandemic in the world.
The technology used for Sputnik V is similar to the approach from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. It uses adenoviruses, essentially cold viruses, as vectors to ferry genetic instructions for the coronavirus-like protein to the body’s cells, causing the immune system to makes antibodies to this protein and thereby conferring protection.
