The head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, which has been heavily involved in Russia’s “Sputnik V” vaccine program, Kirill Dmitriev states that the United States and UK are now “exactly following the example of Russia” in ignoring large scale trials for COVID-19 vaccines.
Dmitriev continued, saying that “the Western world was shocked by Russia’s success (in producing a potential vaccine) and had to go through four stages of accepting the inevitable: denial, anger, depression, and ultimately acceptance.”
The primary vaccine candidate for the US and UK, AstraZeneca’s AZD1222, is undergoing “late-stage Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials for its vaccine”.
According to publicly available data on the ClinicalTrials.gov website, only 38 people participated in the Russian vaccine trials.
Conversely 1,077 people participated in the AstraZeneca AZD1222 Phase II trial which concluded earlier this past summer. In the Phase III trial, the vaccine candidate will be tested on 30,000 individuals. According to Reuters, the vaccine could be rolled out by year-end with data from late-stage studies expected later this month.
