Moscow begins immunization push

MOSCOW — The city of Moscow is opening 70 vaccination facilities where thousands of doctors, teachers and others in high-risk groups had signed up to receive covid-19 vaccines starting Saturday, a precursor to a nationwide immunization effort.

The centers in the capital started giving shots to willing recipients three days after President Vladimir Putin ordered the launch of a “large-scale” covid-19 immunization campaign even though a Russian-designed vaccine has yet to complete the advanced studies needed to ensure its effectiveness and safety in line with established scientific protocols.

The Russian leader said Wednesday that more than 2 million doses of Sputnik V will be available in the next few days, allowing authorities to offer shots to medical workers and teachers across the country.

Moscow, which currently accounts for about a quarter of the country’s new daily infections, moved ahead of the curve with the opening of the vaccination facilities Saturday. Doctors, teachers and municipal workers were invited to book a time to get a shot. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said about 5,000 signed up in a few hours after the system began operating Friday.

[CORONAVIRUS: Click here for our complete coverage » arkansasonline.com/coronavirus]

“Of course I had doubts, especially given that all the clinical trials haven’t ended,” said Tatyana Kirsanova, who received the vaccine Saturday at a Moscow clinic. “But I decided to go ahead and protect myself with all possible options.”

Russia boasted that Sputnik V was the world’s “first registered covid-19 vaccine” after the government gave it regulatory approval in early August. The move drew criticism from international experts, who pointed out that the vaccine had been tested only on several dozen people at the time.

Putin has shrugged off doubts, saying in August that one of his daughters was among the early vaccine recipients.

Sputnik V has been offered to medical workers and teachers for several months even though the vaccine was still in the middle of advanced trials. Several top Russian officials said they had gotten the required two jabs, and the Russian military last week began vaccinating the crews of navy ships scheduled to depart on a mission.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said Wednesday that more than 100,000 people in Russia have received the shots.

Russia is offering the vaccine for free to people 18 to 60 who don’t suffer from chronic illnesses and aren’t pregnant or breastfeeding.

The vaccine was developed by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute. An advanced study among 40,000 volunteers was announced two weeks after the vaccine received government approval, and that is ongoing.

Kirill Dmitriyev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund that bankrolled Sputnik V’s development, said last month that more than 1 billion doses were expected to be produced outside Russia next year.

[Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20OlMHrnGz0]

Last month, developers of the vaccine said interim analysis of trial data showed it was 91.4% effective. The conclusion was based on 39 infections among 18,794 study participants who received both doses of either the vaccine or a placebo, which is a much lower number of infections than Western drugmakers have looked at when assessing the effectiveness of their vaccines. Two other Russia-designed vaccines are also undergoing tests.

On Wednesday, Britain became the first country in the West to authorize the use of a vaccine, approving one developed by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.

Russia has been swept with a resurgence of the outbreak this fall, with numbers of new infections exceeding the levels recorded early in the pandemic, but authorities have refrained from a tight lockdown like the one imposed in the spring.

On Saturday, Russia reported a record high of daily infections at 28,782, including 7,993 in Moscow. The government task force has recorded a total of 42,684 virus-related deaths since the start of the outbreak.

Elsewhere:

• Iceland aims to achieve herd immunity by vaccinating 75% of its population by the end of March. A contract with Pfizer for enough vaccine to inoculate 85,000 people is expected to be signed this week, the Health Ministry said. Iceland, which is covered by the European Union’s procurement program, has already entered an agreement with AstraZeneca for enough doses to vaccinate 115,000 people. Agreements with Moderna and Janssen are also in the works, it said. The North Atlantic island of 360,000 has coped better than most in containing the pandemic, thanks to a combination of limited ports of entry, a generous welfare state and a law-abiding population.

• Spain expects to vaccinate up to 20 million people by June, joining a growing group of countries that can finally put dates on giving shots to stem the pandemic. Elderly people in nursing houses and their staff, followed by health workers, will be vaccinated in the first phase of about 2.5 million people, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Friday. The country’s population is about 47 million. The news coincided with a government poll that showed 60% of Spaniards would agree to take the shot if their doctor urged it. But without that recommendation, 55% would prefer to wait until the health effects of the shot are better known, and 8.4% said they wouldn’t accept it under any condition. Spain will get vaccines produced by the six companies that signed a contract with the EU, Sanchez said.

• Germany will probably be able to start mass vaccinations by summer, T-Online cited Health Minister Jens Spahn as saying in an interview. The country should conclude most of its immunization efforts by the fall if as many people as possible opt for vaccinations, he said. Germany will probably get 11 million doses of the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech by the end of March, Spahn said.

​​​​​Information for this article was contributed by Vladimir Isachenkov of The Associated Press; and by Ragnhildur Sigurdardottir, Thomas Gualtieri, Todd White and Nicholas Comfort of Bloomberg News.