Covid-19: What if Russia’s vaccine outstrips American competitors?

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The race for global supremacy is currently being played out over covid-19 vaccines. Which country will be the first to bring the magic potion to save humanity? The American company Moderna, the British University of Oxford in partnership with the AstraZeneca laboratory or China through its myriad of universities and medical centers?

Nostalgic for the great USSR, Vladmir Putin’s Russia declares that it has developed a vaccine with the help of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology Gamaleïa. The vaccine will be mass-produced by three Russian biomedical companies from September.

According to the Russian Deputy Minister of Health, Oleg Gridnev, quoted Friday August 7, 2020 by Sputniknews, the registration of the vaccine against the coronavirus will take place on August 12 next. “The documents necessary for the registration of the vaccine, including clinical study data, have been submitted to an expertise without which the process is impossible,” said the press service of the ministry, according to the same media. As a reminder, clinical tests on volunteers have been carried out since June 17 at Setchenov University in Moscow and at the Burdenko Military Hospital.

According to the Ministry of Defense, clinical trials on soldiers have been shown to be conclusive and without side effects. Russia would refuse to share its data with the international scientific community.

Seen from Washington, the vaccines developed by China and Russia are struggling to convince. “I really hope that the Chinese and the Russians test their vaccines before administering them to anyone,” said immunologist Anthony Faucid, voice of authority on covid-19, one hearing at the end of July before the US Congress.

“Claiming to have a vaccine ready for distribution before even testing it is, in my opinion, problematic, to put it mildly,” added the highly respected director of the American Institute of Infectious Diseases, which believes that states -United will not have to depend on vaccines from other countries. Critics far from tempering the ardor of Moscow, which intends to begin industrial production from September and October of at least two vaccines against COVID-19 designed by researchers from state centers.

Reacting to US criticism, Kirill A. Dmitriev, boss of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a $ 10 billion vehicle engaged in financing one of the Russian vaccines, quipped, comparing the current race to the anti-Covid vaccine to conquer space. “The Americans were amazed when they heard the signal from Sputnik”, the first artificial satellite launched by the USSR in 1957, he told the American news channel CNN. “With the vaccine, it will be the same. We will be the first ”.

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