Mumbai’s St George Hospital concludes trial for Sputnik V vaccine

The government-run St George hospital completed the third phase of clinical trial of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine last week. So far, no adverse effect has been recorded among the volunteers who completed taking both the shots of the vaccine.

In January, the hospital participated in the third phase of the clinical trial of the vaccine. Just like Covishield and Covaxin, Sputnik V also has two shots to be given 28 days apart. The hospital started the trial from January 20 under which they provided the first jab to 144 volunteers of which two developed mild fever. But none had any other severe health complications. Following this, the hospital started providing the second shot to the volunteers from last week. The process concluded on February 20.

“All 144 volunteers who took the first shot participated in the trial. No one refused to take the second shot. In fact, no one has developed any kind of mild reactions,” said Dr Akash Khobragade, superintendent of the hospital.

However, the hospital will keep following up with the volunteers for the next seven months to see if anyone develops any kind of adverse effect to the vaccine.

The new analysis of data from 20,000 Phase-3 trial participants, published in the medical journal—The Lancet, claimed the vaccine provides more than 90% efficiency against Sars-Cov-2—the virus that causes Covid-19. After being vaccinated with Sputnik V, the body produces antibodies which are specially tailored to the coronavirus which helps the immune system to fight coronavirus when it encounters it for real. “Sputnik V is one of the three vaccines in the world with efficacy of over 90%,” reads the official website of the manufacturer.

In November 2020, the hospital had also participated in the second phase of the clinical trial where around 18 volunteers enrolled. “For the third phase, we got very good responses from doctors. Around 25 of the volunteers were doctors from private hospitals,” he added.

The vaccine was developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. The vaccine maintained over 91% efficacy.