Lack of transparency, steps burned, lack of published data, precipitation … Russia’s vaccine against covid-19, Sputnik V, has been the subject of much criticism in recent months. But good results published on February 2 in the medical journal The Lancet are now reviving the European Union’s interest in this candidate.

91.6% efficiency

And for good reason: according to this study, validated by independent experts, Sputnik V reduced the risk of contracting a symptomatic form of covid by 91.6%. It therefore arrives in terms of efficacy just after the messenger RNA vaccines Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna (95% and 94.1% efficiency) and well before the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine (between 62 and 70% efficiency) .

Like the latter, Sputnik V is a “viral vector” vaccine. It contains two “false viruses” from the adenovirus family, which carry coronavirus proteins on their surface. A kind of “empty shell” sufficient to trigger an immune response without causing symptoms.

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“Scientific principle demonstrated”

The results of the study are those of phase 3 of the clinical trial, conducted between September and November 2020. Nearly 20,000 participants received two doses of vaccine or placebo three weeks apart. PCR tests were then performed on people who developed symptoms.

A total of 16 volunteers out of the 14,900 who had received the two doses of the vaccine tested positive (0.1%), compared to 62 of the 4,900 who had received the placebo (or 1.3%).

While further research is needed to determine the efficacy of the vaccine in asymptomatic cases, the results “are clear and the scientific principle of this vaccination is demonstrated“, estimated two British specialists in a commentary attached to the study.

Make up for the lack of other vaccines

It is following this scientific validation that the European Union expressed its openness to the use of the Russian vaccine, especially since the doses of other authorized vaccines are already lacking and the delays in deliveries are increasing.

The condition, for the European Commission: that Sputnik V obtains, like other vaccines authorized in the EU, the authorization of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). An approach in progress, according to the Russian Sovereign Fund, which affirms that an approval procedure with the EMA was initiated on January 20.

And France will follow the decision of the EMA. Sputnik V can be distributed in our country if it corresponds to the “scientific standards“and to”requirements“Europeans,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on February 3 on Europe 1.

How many doses?

But will Russia be able to deliver the millions of doses the EU could order? So far, no official source has made it clear how many Russian doses have already been produced. The authorities have only mentioned 1.5 million injections worldwide in mid-January.

And if around fifteen countries have already approved Sputnik V (Belarus, Armenia, Venezuela, Iran, Argentina, Algeria or Pakistan), the batches delivered are often symbolic – 20,000 in Bolivia for example – or their scale is not revealed. . In Europe, Hungary, which authorized this vaccine without waiting for the opinion of the EMA, had received 40,000 doses on February 2.

Germany open to co-production

But for the EMA, the manufacturer of the vaccine “must have production capacity in the EU“to ensure rapid deliveries if the vaccine receives the green light. A constraint for which Chancellor Angela Merkel has already offered her help, citing a possible”joint production“with Russia.

Even if Sputnik V receives the green light in Europe, several unknowns persist, as with all currently available vaccines. How long is it effective? Does it block the transmission of the virus? And finally, more worryingly, is it effective against the new variants? These are all questions that future scientific publications will have to answer.