BERLIN, March 11. /TASS/. Minister president of Germany’s Thuringia region, Bodo Ramelow, called for using Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against the novel coronavirus on the country’s territory as soon as possible.
"In my opinion, the Sputnik V vaccine provides a great opportunity for a quicker return to normal life," he said in an interview with Funke Mediengruppe, published on Thursday. "I call upon the German government to let EU understand that a necessary amount of the vaccine should be requested from Sputnik V manufacturers right now."
According to the politician, authorizing the use of Sputnik V will help German citizens to overcome prejudices related to Russian-made medicines. As an example, he cited Germany’s decision to reject Soviet-made vaccine against polio in 1960s, at the cost of children’s lives and health.
"The use of Sputnik V in Germany can lead to the understanding that Eastern European science is not worse than that of capitalist states," he said.
On March 4, the European Medicines Agency announced that it began the procedure of a rolling review of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. The EU regulator stated that during the review specialists would evaluate the compliance of the preparation with EU standards of efficacy, safety and quality. At present, the use of Sputnik V has been authorized by more than 40 countries with a total population of over 1.1 billion people.
In early February 2020, The Lancet, a world-acclaimed medical journal, published the results of the third phase of Sputnik V clinical tests. The vaccine has proved to be among the world’s safest and most efficient. Thus, its efficacy is estimated at 91.6% and 91.8% among volunteers older than 60. A total of 98% of volunteers developed antibodies to the coronavirus.