Sputnik V Vaccine Shows 91.6% Efficacy Against COVID-19, Lancet Study Finds

"The development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticized for its haste, the fact that it has skipped steps and a lack of transparency. But the results reported here are clear and the scientific principle of this vaccination is demonstrated," said Professors Ian Jones and Polly Roy, two British specialists in a commentary accompanying the "Lancet" study. Concretely, this "means that an additional vaccine can now join the fight to reduce the incidence of Covid-19," these researchers, who did not participate in this study themselves, assured.

While many voices in Europe have called in recent weeks for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to quickly evaluate Sputnik V, already used in Russia and a few countries (including Argentina or Algeria), the first verified results reinforce Russia’s initial claims, which had been received with skepticism in the international scientific community last fall. These results seem to rank Sputnik V among the most effective vaccines at this stage, along with those from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna (around 95% effective), which nevertheless use a different technology (messenger RNA).

The team that developed the vaccine conducted clinical trials, precisely phase III which involved nearly 20,000 participants. These trials resulted in the obtaining of these results, which were then submitted to other independent scientists before publication. They show that Sputnik V reduces the risk of contracting a symptomatic form of Covid-19 by 91.6%. Since the PCRs were only performed "when participants reported having Covid symptoms, the efficacy analysis only covers symptomatic cases," the authors of the study specify.

"Further research is needed to determine the vaccine’s efficacy on asymptomatic cases and disease transmission," The Lancet added in a press release.