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Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine approved for use in India

India has become the 60th country to approve the use of the vaccine

© Kirill Kuhmar/TASS

MOSCOW, April 12. /TASS/. India has become a next country to approve the use of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said on Monday.

"The RDIF announces the decision of the Drug Controller General of India, DCGI, to register the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus," it said in a report.

India has become the 60th country to approve the use of the vaccine, the report added.

Russia was the world’s first to register an anti-coronavirus vaccine on August 11, 2020. The vaccine, developed by the Russian Health Ministry’s Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, was dubbed Sputnik V. It is a vector vaccine based on the human adenovirus.

In early February 2020, The Lancet, a world-acclaimed medical journal, published the results of the third phase of Sputnik V’s clinical tests. The jab has proved to be among the world’s safest and most efficient. Thus, its efficacy is estimated at 91.6%. Ninety-eight percent of volunteers developed antibodies to the coronavirus.

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