The Russian drug, Sputnik V is said to cost less than $20 on international markets but will be free of charge for Russian citizens in a bid to produce more than a billion doses at home and abroad next year.
The announcement, which was made on the official Sputnik V Twitter account on Tuesday, is coming after RDIF and the Gamaleya National Center said new clinical trial data based on 39 confirmed cases and 18,794 patients who got both shots had shown that Sputnik V was 91.4 percent effective on day 28 and more than 95 percent effective on day 42.
Some volunteers had short-term minor adverse effects such as pain at the injection site and flu-like symptoms including fever, weakness, fatigue, and headaches, it said.
RDIF has said as of November 11, no serious side effects had been reported during the Sputnik V phase three trial.
Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund, Sputnik V revealed that vaccine would be priced significantly lower than rivals with similar efficacy levels.
The Sputnik vaccine, named after the Soviet-era satellite will be administered in two shots and given to the Russian citizens free of charge. Mass vaccination in Russia, which has the world’s fifth-highest number of recorded COVID-19 cases, has yet to begin as so-called Phase III clinical trials continue.
British drugs group AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, which has pledged it will not make a profit on the vaccine during the pandemic, has reached agreements with governments and international health organisations that put its cost at about $2.50 a dose. Pfizer’s vaccine costs about $20 a dose, while Moderna’s is $15-25, based on agreements the companies have struck to supply their vaccines to the US government.
