Two Russian vaccines against COVID-19 are “effective” and “safe” and a third one is in the pipeline, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday, as he warned against politicising the coronavirus jab issue.
Addressing the virtual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting, Putin said Russia supports the idea of giving countries in need access to drugs and necessary goods.
“We have two registered vaccines in Russia, and the trials have already confirmed that the vaccines are safe, there are no side effects, and they are efficient. A third vaccine is in the pipeline,” he said in his address to the Council of the Heads of State of the SCO.
“They are effective, the people who have been vaccinated and who have then had contact with people who contracted the coronavirus have not contracted the coronavirus themselves, or they only have mild symptoms,” Sputnik News quoted Putin as saying.
In August, Russia became the first country in the world to register a vaccine against the coronavirus, dubbed Sputnik V, and it was developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute. The vaccine is now nearing the end of phase three clinical trials.