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Coronavirus pandemic

Putin says Russian COVID vaccines efficient against new strains

Putin said that at a meeting with Veronika Skvortsova, chief of Russia’s Federal Medical Biological Agency

© Alexander Reka/TASS

MOSCOW, March 1. /TASS/. Russia anti-coronavirus vaccines are efficient against its new strains as well, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday.

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"According to the reports I receive, our vaccines also work against these strains, which have caused so much fear in Europe, and not only in Europe," he said at a meeting with Veronika Skvortsova, chief of Russia’s Federal Medical Biological Agency.

"Tests of these vaccines demonstrate that our vaccines are efficient against these strains," Putin stressed.

According to Skvortsova, over the pandemic period, the agency has spotted some 3,500 mutations of the coronavirus in Russia. "All of them are actually single-nucleotide, neutral variations, which are insignificant in terms of the infection form. Most of them are sporadic mutation, but for only seven with an incidence of five percent in our population," she said.

Thus, in her words, four out of these seven mutations are located in the S-protein but none have been detected in the receptor domain. So, once the receptor domain is intact, all Russian anti-coronavirus vaccines are efficient. "There are three mutations in the nucleacapsid N-protein, but it is another story," she explained.

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