Russia has the Sputnik V plant, but people are reluctant to implement it

Volginsky, Russia (CNN) – Decades ago, Soviet scientists examined biological weapons at a site in Volginsky, about 110 km east of Moscow. Now that site is being used to mass produce a vaccine intended to protect people all over the world from the coronavirus.

CNN was given exclusive access to the facility, now home to Generium Pharmaceutical, which has been contracted to manufacture Russia’s covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V.

The huge high-tech complex is one of seven new manufacturing centers across the country.

Every step of the manufacturing process had to be carefully designed and calibrated, including extensive water filtration systems, to mass produce the new vaccine.

“Basically, the manufacturing process was known on a small laboratory scale, but doing it on a large industrial scale is a different universe,” said Dmitry Poteryaev, Generium’s Chief Scientific Officer.

“You cannot just go from one liter of bioreactor to 100 liters or 1,000 or 1 tonne of bioreactor. Every process is different, oxygenation is different, mass balance is different, ”he explained.

He said those issues had been resolved several months ago and the plant was now ready to ramp up production even further.

“Now we are producing several million doses every month and we hope to get even more, maybe 10-20 million a month,” said Poteryaev.

In cavernous cold stores, with temperatures even colder than the freezing Russian winter, the Sputnik bottles are packed in boxes, awaiting distribution. Each vial has its own unique QR code, they tell us, so it can be traced back to individual patients no matter where in the world they are.

The vaccine has become one of the most reserved in the world, with at least 30 countries, from Argentina to the Philippines, having signed contracts for nearly 2.5 billion doses to date, according to figures from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) , responsible for the production and worldwide distribution of the vaccine.

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Hesitation at home

But demand among Russians for Sputnik V has proved much less enthusiastic so far.

This is a country with one of the highest rates of covid-19 infections in the world: more than 4.1 million cases and the number is still rising. But it also has one of the highest vaccine doubt in the world. A recent poll published by the independent Levada Center indicated that only 38% of Russians are willing to get vaccinated.

Earlier this month, one of the main scientists behind the vaccine’s development said that about 2.2 million people – less than 2% of the Russian population – had received at least the first dose of the two-injection schedule.

Sputnik V was the first COVID-19 vaccine approved for use anywhere in the world last August, even before large-scale human trials were completed.

There was great skepticism at the outset about the Sputnik V, which took its name from the first world satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957 to start the space race with the United States. Critics say the “Putin vaccine” was designed to be another first in a global race to project the power of the Kremlin, however effective or safe it was.

But the results of large-scale human trials, published and peer-reviewed in the prestigious medical journal Lancet earlier this month they showed an impressive 91.6% effectiveness for the vaccine.

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Still, conspiracy theories against vaccines are running wild on the Internet and being watched by millions in Russia, according to monitoring groups. Alexander Arkhipova, a social anthropologist at a state university known as RANEPA, told CNN that many Russians have a cultural tendency to distrust the medical establishment, which is seen as a controlling arm of the government, interfering with people’s private lives. .

Another reason for doubt may be that although President Vladimir Putin said his daughter had been vaccinated, he has not yet been vaccinated.

The Kremlin is ignoring questions about why, saying Putin has planned a vaccination and that when he is finally vaccinated, the nation will be notified.

But in a country where many people look to the Kremlin strongman for leadership, his abstinence on the Sputnik V front is remarkable and discouraging.

Incentives for ice cream

All adults with no underlying health problems in Russia are now eligible for a free vaccine. But progress in Moscow, for example, is painfully slow. According to Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, fewer than 600,000 people have been vaccinated so far in a city of more than 12 million inhabitants.

That’s why there is pressure to increase the number.

The state-funded Gamaleya Institute, where the vaccine was developed, was delighted to invite the CNN team to the inoculation, so to speak, of the source.

And in Moscow, the epicenter of the Russian coronavirus pandemic, pop-up clinics are being set up.

There is one in the chic GUM shopping center, a short walk from the snowy Red Square, where Muscovites can check out the latest fashions in expensive boutiques before heading to Sputnik V. They even get free ice cream with every shot: vanilla covered in chocolate.

Staff told CNN that they vaccinated about 200 people every day. There is capacity for hundreds more.

Another clinic has been set up in a modern dining hall, Depo Moscow, to encourage vaccination after a street food lunch or sushi dinner.

For classical music lovers, there is even one in Helikon, a prestigious Moscow opera house, where sober tones of recorded tenors roar through the speakers as people wait for their recording.

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Some people are being told that the vaccine is their best chance of surviving the pandemic.

Vadim Svistunov, 84, and his wife, Nonna, 86, went to the opera house three weeks later to receive the first vaccine and booster dose.

“We don’t want to go there just yet,” Svistunov told CNN, gesturing toward the sky. “We’re not in a hurry,” he said.