DISINFO: In desperate need of a vaccine, Europe is turning to Russia
SUMMARY
While Western pharmaceutical corporations are still working on a drug against coronavirus, the European Union does not rule out the purchase of a vaccine developed by Russian scientists “Sputnik V”. The race for the vaccine has been another failed test of Western solidarity. On both sides of the Atlantic, governments are making multimillion-dollar orders for a drug that pharmaceutical corporations have not yet created. Opposition against Sputnik V has political roots and is grounded in the fact that West did not yet create its own vaccine.
RESPONSE
A new addition to the recently developed pro-Kremlin narrative about Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V. The European Commission unveiled on Thursday 20 August they had secured 225 million doses on behalf of all EU Member States from CureVac. “The European Commission delivers on its promise to secure rapid access for Europeans and the world to a safe vaccine that protects us against the coronavirus," said Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. While the article attempts to portray the Russian Sputnik V vaccine as a done deal, earlier this month, the WHO published a landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines, which considered the Russian project developed by Gamaleya Research Institute as being in Phase 1 of clinical testing. In fact, Russia hasn’t completed large trials to test the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, and rolling out an inadequately vetted vaccine could endanger people who receive it. The World Health Organisation expressed some reservations about the procedure followed by Russia, initiating talks with Russian authorities about undertaking a review of the vaccine but refusing to endorse it right away. In fact, while there is no approved vaccine yet, there are 36 vaccines in clinical trials on humans, and at least 90 preclinical vaccines are under active investigation in animals.