Latin American countries that have authorized Sputnik V 0:33
Volginsky, Russie. – Decades ago, Soviet scientists studied biological weapons at a site in Volginsky, about 110 km east of Moscow. Now, this site is being used to mass produce a vaccine to protect people around the world from the coronavirus.
CNN has been granted exclusive access to the facility, now home to Generium Pharmaceutical, which has been contracted to increase production of the Russian covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V.
The sprawling high-tech complex is one of seven new production centers across the country.
Every step of the production process had to be carefully designed and calibrated, including extensive water filtration systems, to mass produce the new vaccine.
The vaccine vials are packaged at the Generium Pharmaceutical factory, which is preparing the production of Sputnik V.
“In principle, the manufacturing process was known on a small laboratory scale, but doing it on a large industrial scale is another universe,” Dmitry Poteryaev, Scientific Director of Generium, told CNN.
“You can’t just go from a liter of a bioreactor to a 100 liter or 1000 or 1 ton of a bioreactor. Each process is different, the oxygenation is different, the mass balance is different, ”he explained.
He said these issues were resolved several months ago and the factory was now ready to further increase production.
“Today we produce several million doses every month and we hope to get even more, maybe 10 to 20 million a month,” said Poteryaev.
Sputnik V boxes are kept cold before shipment.
In cavernous refrigerators, with temperatures even colder than the freezing Russian winter, Sputnik V vials are packaged in boxes, awaiting distribution. Each vial has its own QR code, we are told, so that it can be traced to individual patients, wherever they are in the world.
The vaccine has become one of the most reserved in the world, with at least 30 countries, from Argentina to the Philippines, signing contracts for nearly 2.5 billion doses so far, according to figures from the Fund. Russian direct investment (RDIF), responsible for the production and worldwide distribution of the vaccine.
SEE: “There was a campaign to tell Argentines that Sputnik was poison”, says Fernández
Hesitation at home
But the Russian demand for Sputnik V has so far proved much less enthusiastic.
It is a country with one of the highest numbers of covid-19 infections in the world: over 4.1 million cases and above. But it also has one of the highest vaccine doubt rates in the world. A recent opinion poll, published by the Independent Levada Center, indicated that only 38% of Russians are ready to be vaccinated.
Earlier this month, one of the key scientists behind the vaccine’s development said about 2.2 million people – less than 2% of Russia’s population – had received at least the initial dose of the vaccine. scheme of two injections.
Millions of doses of Sputnik V are already produced each month at the Generium Pharmaceutical factory.
Sputnik V was the first COVID-19 vaccine approved for use anywhere in the world last August, even before large-scale human trials ended.
There was great skepticism at first about Sputnik V, which takes its name from the first global satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, initiating 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 might of the Kremlin, however effective or safe it may be.
But results from large-scale human trials, published and peer-reviewed in the prestigious Lancet medical journal earlier this month, showed an impressive 91.6% efficacy for the vaccine.
READRussian vaccine against coronavirus Sputnik V has minimal side effects, phase 3 study published in The Lancet
Yet anti-vaccine conspiracy theories are running on the internet and are seen by millions of people in Russia, watch groups say. Alexander Arkhipova, a social anthropologist at a state university known as RANEPA, told CNN that many Russians have a cultural tendency to be wary of the medical establishment, which is seen as a controlling arm of the government, meddling in people’s privacy.
Another reason for doubt may be that while President Vladimir Putin said his daughter was vaccinated, she has not yet been.
The Kremlin ignored questions about the reasons, saying Putin has a vaccination scheduled and when he is finally vaccinated, the nation will be notified.
But in a country where many look to the Kremlin strongman for leadership, his abstinence on the Sputnik V front is remarkable and disheartening.
Ice Cream Incentives
All adults without an underlying health problem in Russia can now benefit from a free vaccine. But progress in Moscow, for example, is painfully slow. In a city of more than 12 million inhabitants, less than 600,000 have been vaccinated so far, according to Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.
Therefore, there is pressure to increase the numbers.
The state-funded Gamaleya Institute where the vaccine was developed was happy to invite the CNN team to receive the inoculation, so to speak, from the source.
People line up for a dose of Sputnik V at a clinic in Moscow’s GUM shopping center.
And in Moscow, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia, ephemeral clinics are being created.
There’s one in the upscale GUM mall, a short walk from the snow-capped Red Square, where Muscovites can browse the latest fashions in expensive boutiques, before heading to Sputnik V.
Customers of GUM department stores benefit from free ice cream after vaccination.
Staff told CNN they are vaccinating about 200 people every day. There is capacity for hundreds more.
Another clinic has been set up in a modern food hall, Depo Moscow, to encourage vaccination after a street lunch or sushi dinner.
For classical music lovers, there’s even one inside Helikon, a prestigious Moscow opera house, where austere tones of recorded tenors roar through the speakers as people wait for their shot.
READ: Russia vaccinates Latin America against the coronavirus: this is how the Sputnik V vaccine spread throughout the region
Some people understand that the vaccine is their best chance of surviving the pandemic.
84-year-old Vadim Svistunov received the vaccine in an opera house.
Vadim Svistunov, 84, and his wife, Nonna, 86, went to the opera house to receive the initial vaccination and the booster dose three weeks later.
“We don’t want to go there yet,” Svistunov told CNN, pointing to the sky. “We are in no rush,” he said.
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