Moments after registering the world's first coronavirus vaccine today, Russia has dubbed it "Sputnik V" after the Soviet satellite, a top official said on Tuesday. The vaccine is all set to release tomorrow and one of Putin's daughters has already been given a shot of the COVID-19 vaccination.
"As far as I know, for the first time in the world, a vaccine against the novel coronavirus infection was registered this morning," President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying at a meeting with the government.
The vaccine is developed jointly by Gamaleya Research Institute and the Russian Defence Ministry. Russia's Healthcare Minister Mikhail Murashko had informed that the COVID-19 vaccine of Russian Microbiology Research Center Gamaleya has been registered. The vaccine proved to be safe and effective.
Russian authorities have said that medical workers, teachers, and other risk groups will be the first to get vaccinated.
Since the outbreak of coronavirus in December last year, various countries have been racing against time to bring the coronavirus vaccine.
According to ICMR, three Indian COVID-19 vaccines are in different phases of clinical testing.
"At present, we have three Indian vaccines that are in different phases of clinical testing. The two vaccines -- Bharat Biotech vaccine and DNA vaccine of Zydus Cadila have completed phase 1 and will begin phase 2, while third is Oxford vaccine," said ICMR scientist (Prof) Balram Bhargava.
The Oxford vaccine, being manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) got approval for phase 2 and 3 clinical trials. The University of Oxford had begun the clinical trials of a potential COVID-19 vaccine on humans in April.
The Oxford vaccine -- called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 -- is made from a harmless chimpanzee virus, the university confirmed to CNN.
According to the latest global update by the Johns Hopkins University, a total number of 20,092,855 people have been tested positive of coronavirus and 736,254 deaths have been reported so far. The World Health Organisation had declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a pandemic on March 11.
(With inputs from ANI)
