With 'Sputnik V' vaccine, Russia takes 1st shot at Covid; Putin's daughter inoculated

Moscow: President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday announced that Russia has developed the world's first vaccine against COVID-19 that works "quite effectively" and forms a "stable immunity" against the deadly disease as he disclosed that one of his daughters has already been vaccinated.

"A vaccine against Coronavirus has been registered for the first time in the world this morning," Putin said during a meeting with members of his government.

"I know that it works quite effectively, it forms a stable immunity," the official Tass news agency quoted Putin as saying.

Putin's claim has come amidst concerns raised by experts about the speed of Russia's work, suggesting that researchers might be cutting corners.

Reacting to Putin's announcement, US health secretary Alex Azar said the goal of developing a Coronavirus vaccine is not to be first but to have one that is safe and effective.

"The point is not to be first with a vaccine the point is to have a vaccine that is safe and effective for the American people and the people of the world," Azar said told ABC News.

"We need transparent data, and it's got to be Phase 3 data that shows that a vaccine is safe and effective," Azar, currently on a historic visit to Taiwan, said.

Danny Altmann, Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, told the Science Media Centre there were concerns about releasing a vaccine before it was fully tested.

"The bar is necessarily set very high for criteria that must be satisfied for approval after Phase 3 clinical trials," a news report quoted Altmann as saying.

Amid fears that safety could have been compromised, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged Russia last week to follow international guidelines for producing a vaccine against COVID-19, the BBC reported.

The Russian vaccine is not among the WHO's list of six vaccines that have reached phase three clinical trials, which involve more widespread testing in humans, the report noted.

But Putin said one of his daughters had tested a Russian COVID-19 vaccine on herself and that she is feeling well.

"I know this very well, because one of my daughters got vaccinated, so in this sense, she took part in testing," Putin said. He did not specify which of his two daughters had received the vaccine.

The vaccine has been named Sputnik-V. The name is a reference to the surprise 1957 launch of the world's first satellite by the Soviet Union.

Clinical trials of the vaccine kicked off on June 18 and included 38 volunteers. All of the participants developed an immunity. The first group was discharged on July 15, the second group on July 20.