L'Express: Sputnik V vaccine is a bitter failure

October 2, 2021

Russian vaccine "Sputnik V", developed by the Institute Gamalei turned out to be a "bitter failure." This is what L'Express claims .

The publication reminds that neither the European Union nor the World Health Organization have recognized the Russian drug so far. And given the low level of vaccination in the Russian Federation - according to a survey by the Morning Consult Institute, 34% of Russians categorically refuse vaccination, which is almost twice as many as in the USA or France, it turns out that Sputnik V faces double mistrust: domestic and international, writes the media.

It is possible that the European Medicines Agency was unable to approve the Russian vaccine due to a number of formalities, because the Russians were not familiar with the procedure, especially the sanitary one. However, experts have questions about the effectiveness of the drug itself from the Russian Federation.

So, commenting on the data on "Sputnik V", published in The Lancet, an infectious disease specialist from France and an expert on vaccines Jean-Daniel Lelyevre questioned the uniformity of the effectiveness of the Russian vaccine for all age groups. “Indicators of 92%, 90%, 91% are presented, regardless of whether we are talking about people over 60 years old or about those who are 18-30 years old. As a rule, efficiency decreases with age. So this is rather unusual, ”the expert said. Another medical statistician at the University of Rouen Hospital, André Gillibert, also found several anomalies. In particular, he pointed out the discrepancy between the number of patients at the beginning and at the end of certain trials in the Russian Federation.

Countries that had previously agreed on the supply of the drug have already begun to refuse Sputnik V. The Russian vaccine is used in more than 50 countries on 4 continents, including Argentina, Hungary, Bolivia, Algeria, Montenegro, Paraguay. However, for example, Guatemala, which received only 10% of the 16 million doses purchased, has already canceled half of its order and is now awaiting vaccines from Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer.

The effectiveness of the Russian vaccine was questioned by the leader of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin himself, the newspaper notes. So, he completed a full course of vaccination with "Sputnik V", but recently he had to isolate due to the fact that several people in his close circle became infected, although they were also vaccinated.