As per the Russian health ministry sources, the first batch of Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik-V, developed by Russia’s Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), was released into civil circulation after it passed the necessary quality tests in the laboratories of Roszdravnadzor (medical device regulator) on September 8, 2020. It had been registered by the Russian health ministry on August 11.
It is administered in two doses and consists of two serotypes of human adenovirus, each carrying an S-antigen of the new coronavirus, which enter human cells and produce an immune response for up to two years, though the results have not been made public. A so-called viral vector vaccine, it employs another virus to carry the DNA encoding of the needed immune response into cells. It took Russian scientists more than twenty years to develop the platform, used for vaccines.
Sputnik V is based on the same technology, developed by CanSino, a Chinese vaccine-making company and could be available by October, this year.
Courtesy: ndtv.com, aljazeera.com