MOSCOW, February 7. /TASS/. Leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) Vladimir Zhirinovsky has suggested developers of the Sputnik V anti-coronavirus vaccine be awarded Russia’s State Prize and be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
"The development of the Sputnik V vaccine is an epoch-making event. I suggest the vaccine developers be awarded Russia’s State Prize on June 12 in the Kremlin. They should also be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine," he wrote on his Twitter account on Sunday.
On August 11, 2020, Russia registered the world’s first vaccine against the novel coronavirus. The vaccine, dubbed Sputnik V, was developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Health Ministry. It is a vector vaccine based on the human adenovirus. Mass production of the vaccine was launched on August 15, 2020.
On February 2, 2020, The Lancet, a medical journal, published the results of the third phase of Sputnik V clinical tests. The vaccine efficacy is estimated at 91.6% and 91.8% among volunteers older than 60. Ninety-eight percent of volunteers developed antibodies to the coronavirus. All developed cell-mediated immunity. Immunity after vaccination proved to be by 1.3-1.5% higher than after the disease.