After an initial dose of skepticism about Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine, Dr. Anthony Fauci now admits that data on the Sputnik V shot leads him to believe it is “quite effective.”
‘I’ve looked at some reports. It looks pretty good, ”Fauci said on Monday on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, Bloomberg News reported.
In February, a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet found that Sputnik V is about 91 percent effective and appears to prevent serious cases of infection.
Concerns about the safety of the two-dose vaccination grew after Russia approved the shot in August 2020 – ahead of its Western competitors and before the start of large-scale clinical trials.
President Vladimir Putin said at the time that one of his daughters had been vaccinated with it, although it had only been tested on a few dozen people.
But Fauci had expressed skepticism about the Russian shot.
“I hope the Russians have really proven the vaccine to be safe and effective,” Fauci told ABC News at the time. “I seriously doubt they did.”
In January, the US Department of Health and Human Services said the Office of Global Affairs was trying to convince Brazil not to allow Sputnik V – accusing Moscow of expanding its influence in America at the expense of US safety and security. according to Bloomberg.
In the new interview, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Biden’s chief science adviser, said he hasn’t had the opportunity to review a Chinese vaccine, but it could also be “ good ‘.
“But I think the Russian is quite effective,” he said.
The Russian vaccine is similar to the one being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
Both use a modified version of the cold-causing adenovirus to carry genes for the spike protein in the coronavirus to get the body to respond to a COVID-19 infection.
But unlike AstraZeneca’s vaccine, the Russian version uses a slightly different adenovirus for its second booster shot.
On Monday, AstraZeneca announced that research data from an American study of the vaccine shows that it is 79 percent effective.
It said its experts had also identified no safety concerns related to the vaccine, including a rare blood clot identified in Europe.
Experts found no increased risk of blood clots in the more than 20,000 people who received at least one dose of the AstraZeneca injection.