The Financial Times (FT) on Aug. 14, 2020 published an article confirming EIR’s initial evaluation: The Russian COVID vaccine, Sputnik V, despite all the hysteria, is indeed presently going through Phase 3 trials; but it is also being made available to all frontline medical workers immediately. Putin himself made the command decision for the latter. In fact, many top government officials in Russia have taken advantage of the vaccine already. Otherwise, on Aug. 13 Russia initiated their pre-qualification approval with WHO, a necessary step for exporting the vaccine.
Alexander Gintsburg, the director of state-run Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, told FT: “After five months, our immunity is good, it corresponds to a significantly high level of antibodies, which guarantees protection against any dose of Covid-19. So, at the institute we can afford to be at some liberty to be completely without face masks.” His institute, established under Soviet rule, is still state-run and, having suffered many cutbacks, is relatively tiny in comparison with BigPharma. There is disbelief in the West that they could have accomplished such a rapid development of a successful vaccine. However, their ongoing scientific tradition and the freedom of the institute from profit-making is an interesting study as to what works in dealing with health emergencies. Gintsburg explained: “In the absence of global health threats in recent decades, vaccine research has been on the fringes of the global pharmaceutical industry, while Russian labs continued their research.”
