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PUTIN'S ANNUAL PRESS CONFERENCE

Putin highlights 97% effectiveness of Russia’s coronavirus vaccine

On August 11, Russia became the first country to register a coronavirus vaccine, which was named Sputnik V

© Kirill Kukhmar/TASS

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MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. The effectiveness of Russia’s coronavirus vaccine is 97%, President of Russia Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Thursday.

"Russia is the first country in the world, which has invented, we could say, and started to produce the vaccine of both the Gamaleya scientific institute and the Novosibirsk-based Vector center. And we have a good vaccine [that is] both safe and effective - 95% and higher - and specialists say its level of protection reaches 96-97%," Putin noted.

Cooperation with AstraZeneca

The Russian president expressed confidence that Russia’s cooperation on the coronavirus vaccine with AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company, will yield a good result.

"Our foreign colleagues, Thank God, have also turned their face toward us and are ready for cooperation in some issues where they have failed. The British-Swedish company AstraZeneca is ready to work together with us and is signing a respective deal now. This is very good, we are very glad when specialists at such a high level (and this is a major and a good company, which is internationally known) unite their efforts, including with Russian partners. I’m sure that this will be a very good result both for our citizens and the rest of the world," Putin said.

On August 11, Russia became the first country to register a coronavirus vaccine, which was named Sputnik V. The vaccine was developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. The preparation’s post-registration trials began in Moscow on September 7 and volunteers received the first vaccine on September 9. Overall, the trials involve 40,000 people, 10,000 of whom received a placebo.

The Vector center obtained the Russian Health Ministry’s permission for the clinical trials of its vaccine on volunteers on July 24. The trials came to an end on September 30. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on October 14 that the vaccine developed by the Vector center had received a registration certificate.

On November 16, Russia’s Health Ministry gave the go-ahead to the Vector center to hold post-registration trials of its EpiVacCorona vaccine on volunteers aged over 60. On November 18, permission to carry out trials on 3,000 volunteers was issued.

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