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'Universal booster': Sputnik Light's efficacy higher than other vaccines, experts claim

WION Web Team
Moscow, RussiaWritten By: Deeksha TeriUpdated: Oct 13, 2021, 07:20 PM IST
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Photograph:(Reuters)

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Declaring the possibility of Sputnik Light becoming a 'universal booster' shot, Russian experts have said that Sputnik Light Covid vaccine is 70 per cent effective against the Delta variant

As the demand for booster shots of Covid vaccines increase, Russia's Sputnik Light has declared that this single-shot vaccine is enough on its own, and can also be used as a booster shot with other western vaccines.

In a press conference, the CFO of Russian Direct Investment Fund, reported that new data from Gamaleya Center shows that a single shot of the Sputnik Light Covid vaccine is 70 per cent effective against the Delta variant.

"Sputnik Light, a one-shot vaccine, is efficient against the Delta with 70 per cent efficacy, and for people with age 60 and below, its efficacy is 75 per cent. So, those are actually very high efficacy numbers," said Kirill Dmitriev, CFO, Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). "It shows that one-shot Sputnik V vaccine shows high efficacy against Delta variant than two shots of many other vaccines, and Sputnik Lite shows high efficacy against many other two-shot vaccines."

This becomes more important as several other vaccines, the Russian company claims, have shown a decline in the efficacy against the deadly Delta variant to less than 50 per cent, five months after the shot.

Considering the high efficacy of the Sputnik Light vaccine, the one-shot vaccine can also be sued as a booster shot for several other vaccines, the organisation claimed.

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"As a standalone, Sputnik Light is a great fighter against the Delta variant, based on this data and this is particularly important because in addition to being a standalone vaccine, Sputnik V can also be a booster to other vaccines," Dmitriev said. "Booster is much needed by the world because many other vaccines show decline of efficacy to 68 per cent on month three and Sputnik Light is efficient against 70 per cent against Delta on month three of vaccine. So, mRNA vaccines need booster and Sputnik Light can be a booster to mRNA and other vaccines."

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He also reminded the world that Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology was the first in the world to suggest combination of different vaccines. The institute was also the first to start clinical trials with AstraZeneca in February. Currently, the Russian experts are running clinical trials with Argentina of Sputnik Light as a booster shot with Sinopharm, Moderna and more.

"Those trials show very nice safety and efficacy results and we believe that if Sputnik Light is used as a booster, it will have efficacy similar to Sputnik V original vaccine, which is 83 per cent against infections and 94 per cent against hospitalisations," Dmitriev claimed. He also said that the experts believe that Sputnik Light is positioned to a 'universal booster'.