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Coronavirus pandemic

Russian Health Ministry rejects study of combination of AstraZeneca, Sputnik V vaccines

Two groups of volunteers were to participate in the study

© EPA-EFE/CHRISTIAN CHARISIUS/POOL

MOSCOW, May 28. /TASS/. The Russian Healthcare Ministry’s ethics committee has issued a negative verdict with regards to a proposal to study the effectiveness of combining the AstraZeneca and Sputnik V vaccines. The committee made the decision at a meeting on May 11, the Farmatsevticheskiy Vestnik (Annals of Pharmaceutics) newspaper reported.

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It was proposed to conduct Phase One and Two trials using a combination of vaccines in order to evaluate safety and immunogenicity. It was planned to administer the combination to adults for the prevention of the coronavirus infection, the newspaper explained.

Two groups of volunteers were to participate in the study. One group was supposed to receive an injection of the adenoviral AstraZeneca vaccine and on Day 29 after the administration - the first component of Sputnik V. In the second group, the order of the jabs was to be reversed.

The study was to be conducted in Belarus and six Russian centers. The AstraZeneca company was indicated as a sponsor with R-Pharm, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology listed as the study co-authors, the newspaper noted citing the Healthcare Ministry’s register of clinical trials.

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