MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. No serious side effects have been identified in medical records of volunteers who took part in clinical trials of the Russian coronavirus vaccine dubbed Sputnik V, Denis Logunov, the deputy research director at the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, said Thursday.
"The vaccine was administered to healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 60 and showed a very good profile of safety. Not a single serious side effect was registered," he told an online conference discussing the first COVID-19 vaccine in the world.
According to Logunov, the most common side effects are pain in the injection spot, hypothermia in some volunteers and headache. "All these undesirable effects were qualified as insignificant," the deputy director noted.
He added that just like in pre-clinical trials the center employees studied the vaccine’s efficiency by stimulation of immune response. "[The research] showed that 100% of participating volunteers had developed antibodies in high quantities," Logunov underlined. "Moreover, 100% of volunteers developed virus-neutralizing antibodies," he emphasized, adding that the clinical trials featured both types of the vaccine - freeze-dried and liquid.
On August 11, Russia became the first country in the world to register a coronavirus vaccine named Sputnik V, which was developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Health Ministry. The injection passed clinical trials in June-July. The vaccine is based on an already known platform that was used to create a number of other injections.
According to Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia received preliminary applications to purchase more than one billion doses of the breakthrough vaccine from 20 countries. He noted that Latin American, Middle Eastern and Asian countries are most interested in buying it, while a number of contracts has already been finalized.