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Coronavirus pandemic

Sputnik V vaccine developers suggest combining it with AstraZeneca vaccine

Combining vaccine may prove important for revaccinations

© Steve Parsons/Pool via REUTERS

MOSCOW, November 27. /TASS/. The developers of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine have proposed combining it with the vaccine of the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca when conducting trials to evaluate the increase in efficacy. They wrote it on the Twitter page of the Russian vaccine.

"Current full dose AstraZeneca regimen resulted in 62% efficacy. If they go for a new clinical trial, we suggest trying a regimen of combining the AZ shot with the Sputnik V human adenoviral vector shot to boost efficacy. Combining vaccine may prove important for revaccinations," the developers tweeted.

Earlier, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said that the company, which is developing the vaccine with Oxford University, is going to conduct additional trials after a number of experts doubted its efficacy.

Clinical trials of the Oxford vaccine were conducted on 20,000 volunteers from the United Kingdom and Brazil. Preliminary results showed that the average vaccine efficacy was 70%. During the trials, it was found that when two equally large doses of the vaccine were administered with a difference in a month, the level of protection against infection was 62%. It increased to 90% when the subjects first received a small dose, and then, with a second injection, a bigger dose of the medicine.

According to the World Health Organization, currently, there are about 170 projects in the world to develop a vaccine against coronavirus. On August 11, Russia was the first in the world to register a coronavirus vaccine called Sputnik V. According to the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the efficacy of the vaccine is 95%.

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