Sputnik V provides complete protection against the omicron strain of the coronavirus. As the head of the Gamaleya Center Alexander Gintsburg said on December 17, the developers of the domestic vaccine conducted a study and made sure that the vaccination scheme proposed by the Ministry of Health remains effective. According to him, for the formation of stable immunity, you still need to be vaccinated with “Sputnik V”, and six months later, revaccinated with a booster dose.
The fact that Russian drugs remain effective against the new strain was also stated by President Vladimir Putin at the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP). True, he stressed that vaccination is not a reason to forget about other precautions:
“Some researchers say that this is a milder form, while others – about the possible severe consequences after people get sick with it. Our “Sputnik V” is working, as it is seen today – within a week experts will give a final assessment – well and, perhaps, even more effective in the fight against “omicron” than other vaccines used in the world.
Once again, I will return to European countries. Here is the UK. We have 26-28 thousand sick a day, and there, according to their official data, 88 thousand. The population is almost two times less, and the number of cases is almost three times more. Why am I saying this now? New Year’s holidays are on the way. The movement will be very large. And this is good. We should, of course, celebrate, but we need to listen to all the recommendations and follow them if we want us to really have a happy future. “
According to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, the final verification of the effectiveness of all Russian vaccines will take two to three weeks. At the same time, on December 17, the University of Washington and the Swiss company Humabs Biomed published their research and said that Sputnik V has not yet shown effectiveness against the omicron strain. Scientists analyzed the blood serum of 11 people vaccinated with the Russian drug and found that none of them developed antibodies to the new variant of the coronavirus.
However, studies on small samples can hardly be called indicative, and there have not been more large-scale checks yet, says the candidate of biological sciences, geneticist Kirill Volkov: the mixture is added or not added serum from those who have been ill or vaccinated. Then experts look at how much it, and in different concentrations, protects sensitive cells from the virus.
This work must take place in very serious conditions. There are one or two such laboratories in the country. Naturally, all this is associated with complicated procedures. It is simply impossible to assess a very large number of samples quickly, which is why the samples are so small – 10-20 people. The results will depend, in part, on the timing of vaccinations, revaccinations, and so on.
It’s hard to get data via Sputnik. Information about the UK is easier, almost every PCR test is positive there. You can distinguish omicron from other strains, see what mutations have gathered. In our country, only people who come from South Africa are sequenced. But considering that almost 70 countries already have cases of omicron infection, all people who come from any country can potentially be infected with it. But we do not know this, and, accordingly, we cannot assess how effective vaccines are against coronavirus in real conditions. “
At the same time, the Gamaleya Center said that there is already a technology in the world that makes it possible to protect immediately from all possible strains, even those that have not yet appeared. According to Alexander Gintsburg, such vaccines are being tested in clinical trials. True, it will not be possible to quickly bring such a drug to the market, says Anch Baranova, doctor of biological sciences, professor at the School of Systems Biology at George Mason University:
“This can be done. We are testing pancoronavirus vaccines, it’s true. This technology is as expensive as any other technology. It may not even be possible to put it on the Sputnik platform; on the Betuwax platform, it is possible. But she has more than one platform, others also exist, you just need to do more sighting experiments, they can take time. If the adenoviral vector, the replacement of the antigen in it can be released in two weeks, and then scaled up in three months, then here the first stage can take several months or even a year. “
On December 16, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova announced that so far 25 cases of infection with the omicron strain have been detected in Russia, but it is no longer possible to avoid its spread in the country. And the Ministry of Health of South Africa said that the likelihood of hospitalization with the “omicron” is 11 times lower than with the disease with the delta strain. According to the authorities, only one in 60 people with a positive test is admitted to hospitals.
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