UAE authorises emergency use of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19

According to the latest claim from Rospotrebnadzor, the consumer health watchdog of Russian Federation, the new COVID-19 vaccine developed by the country, dubbed EpiVacCorona, is 100% effective in clinical trials.

Russian Federation was the first country to register a coronavirus vaccine in August despite Sputnik V's incomplete clinical trials at the time, raising concerns over the fast-tracked procedure.

However, "we do not need to have the vaccine registered in Brazil to export it to other countries that have approved it", he told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

An RDIF spokesman said 10 more countries would register it by next week, under emergency use procedures not requiring local clinical trials.

Russian Federation began testing EpiVacCorona, which is being developed by Siberia's Vector Institute, in November.

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It was announced that Sputnik V, the first vaccine produced by the Gamaleya Epidemiology and Microbiology Research Institute and registered against COVID-19, had a very high efficiency rate of 92 percent.

Apart from Sputnik V and EpiVacCorona, there are several other COVID-19 vaccines being administered around the world.

Kirill Dmitriev, RDIF Chief Executive, said the worldwide platform was created so that vaccine developers could exchange information, opinions and expertise with their leading foreign colleagues.

"The Direct Investment Fund confirms that, yesterday, the experts from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) conducted a scientific review for the Sputnik V vaccine developers. This suggests that, despite the many people who have already been infected with SARS-CoV-2 globally and are presumed to have accumulated some level of immunity, new variants such as 501Y.V2 pose a significant re-infection risk", the authors were quoted as saying.

"The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP) has authorized the use of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic". For full protection, a person must get two doses, the first of which provide 70% efficacy.