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Medicine

Russia Claims To Have Registered World's First COVID-19 Vaccine (cnbc.com) 165

New submitter Hmmmmmm shares a report from CNBC: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the registration of what Russia claims to be the first vaccine for the coronavirus in the world and said one of his daughters had already taken it. "Although I know that it works quite effectively, it forms a stable immunity and, I repeat, has passed all the necessary checks," Putin said. Clinical trials of this Russian vaccine have been completed in less than two months and phase three trials are set to begin on Wednesday, despite the vaccine having already been registered. Countries including the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia are taking part in those trials.

"The vaccine developed by Russia is a so-called viral vector vaccine, meaning it employs another virus to carry the DNA encoding of the needed immune response into cells," reports Al Jazeera. "[The Gamaleya research institute's vaccine] is based on the adenovirus, a similar technology to the coronavirus vaccine prototype developed by China's CanSino. The state-run Gamaleya institute came under fire after researchers and its director injected themselves with the prototype several months ago, with specialists criticizing the move as an unorthodox and rushed way of starting human trials.

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Russia Claims To Have Registered World's First COVID-19 Vaccine

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  • Adenoviral vector (Score:5, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @06:25PM (#60391601)

    We basically only have a few good adenoviral vectors .. when you take a vaccine based on it you might because immune to future vaccines based on that vector. It's a one shot deal. So what? Well adenoviral vectors are one of the best vectors we currently have (granted better ones are being worked on). What's going to happen if a virus worse than this one shows up? We won't have the adenoviral vector to use for that.

    I personally would avoid it unless I was old or higher risk of dying from COVID.

    • Re:Adenoviral vector (Score:5, Informative)

      by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @08:02PM (#60391911) Journal

      There's a good chance that a virus "worse" than this one won't spread nearly as fast, or as far. The faster a virus kills you, the harder it is to spread. The higher the death rate of a virus, the harder it is to spread.

      Corpses don't spread respiratory viruses nearly as well as the breathing. This one basically sits in the sweet spot of being easily transmittable via airborne droplet, while also not showing symptoms in some, and causing irritating-to-severe symptoms in most. It's also the reason Influenza spreads pretty easily and doesn't usually do as much harm, early 1900s notwithstanding.

    • What's going to happen if a virus worse than this one shows up?

      We haven't had a virus as bad as this one show up for about a century. Assuming that is a typical period then most people getting the vaccine will not be alive when the next bad virus hits....and if they are then clearly medical technology will have seriously advanced and may likely have better or at least different ways to solve the problem.

      It's fine to hoard important resources like this for when disaster strikes but it's foolish to continue hoarding them once disaster has struck especially since your

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Also if there is a next time relatively soon we should hopefully be better prepared. That's how South Korea did so well, they had prior experience with SARS and got their act together really fast.

      • We haven't had a virus as bad as this one show up for about a century.

        Define "as bad". MERS, SARS-COV-1, HIV, Marburg and Ebola are all within the last half or century or so and all more deadly than SARS-COV-2.

        But I do also think it's looking very strongly like mRNA vaccines will be successful at which point the next pandemic will probably have an even faster and more flexible vaccine solution regardless if it happens in 10 years from now.

    • We basically only have a few good adenoviral vectors .. when you take a vaccine based on it you might because immune to future vaccines based on that vector.

      And apparently this immunization uses up TWO of them.

  • I won't be taking it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @06:28PM (#60391613)
    Not just the Russian one, but anything that comes out in the next 6 months. There is a reason the FDA likes to have multi year tests on drugs, and I'd rather take my chances with either A) getting the 'rona; B) going to the ICU cuz of the 'rona; or C) taking a vaccine who's effectiveness and/or safety are more political than scientific.
    • I will take the first one approved here. It might make me ill for a few days but the coronavirus will likely kill me.

      • Ditto. 73, hi BP, Type A blood, I get it and I'm dead. The way to get injured is to get between me and the CVS on the 1st day it is offered. You'd get trampled.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          Just look at what is going on, 'RUSSIA CLAIMS', any western country and they would have detailed the lab in the west and proclaim vaccine found and lobbyists would immediately be out in force demanding tens of billions of dollars be spend immediately to buy up all the doses in advance, glorious, glorious profit, so fucking what if it does not work. So instead in corporate mainstream media with the big pharmeceuticals paying the advertising bills, 'RUSSIA CLAIMS' and a whole flood of forum posts by cunt PR=B

          • Here we go again.
          • Just look at what is going on, 'RUSSIA CLAIMS', any western country and they would have detailed the lab in the west and proclaim vaccine found and lobbyists would immediately be out in force demanding tens of billions of dollars be spend immediately to buy up all the doses in advance, glorious, glorious profit, so fucking what if it does not work. So instead in corporate mainstream media with the big pharmeceuticals paying the advertising bills, 'RUSSIA CLAIMS' and a whole flood of forum posts by cunt PR=B$ corporations about how bad Russian science is, how bad anything that comes out of Russia is and ALL RUSSIANS ARE EVIL.

            There's an excellent tracker of where in development the different vaccines are at: https://www.nytimes.com/intera... [nytimes.com] TFA says phase 3 trials of the Russian vaccine begins about now so looking at the tracker there are 8 vaccines already in phase 3 trials and thus ahead of the Russian. With that information I don't see that any of your quoted proposition holds.

          • and a whole flood of forum posts by cunt PR=B$ corporations about how bad Russian science is

            What if approving the vaccine and claiming it is safe before even starting stage 3 trials... is bad science?

    • But that has nothing to do with safety. Supply issues mean front line healthcare workers & teachers will get it before you do.
    • The question is whether you will have that option. Can you imagine certain employers requiring you to have that vaccination to be allowed back on the job, with governments backing it for public health concerns? I sure can.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Ya, but the alleged administration, given their past behavior, is likely to lean on the CDC and FDA to get a vaccine, any vaccine, out there. I wouldn't put it past that idiot to do a deal with his minder, Putin, to make that vaccine here and distribute it. They may not find willing participants in U.S. industry for the manufacture and distribution, but that misses the point. He'll just claim there is a magical cure and he and his genius deal will provide if only he were re-elected.

      And if he were re-elected

  • Many unknowns (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @06:30PM (#60391621)

    From what I can tell, this hasn't passed the standard third phase trial. I.e. we don't know if it actually does inoculate people.

    That said, Soviets had some incredible biotech that West was decades behind in when Iron Curtain fell, and they're still undisputed world leaders in many of those as much of Western academia attaches a stigma to "those fields that Soviets had a massive lead in". One good example here is phage therapies, i.e. treating bacterial infections with families of viruses that predate on bacteria.

    This seems to be a product of this "general" sort of biotech, using viral vectors for payload delivery. Maybe. Details are murky. There's a meaningful non-zero chance that they have done what they claim they have done, but it seems less than likely.

    • Re:Many unknowns (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @06:42PM (#60391659) Journal

      There are already many candidate vaccines which could be claimed "the first COVID vaccine". The hard part is testing correctly, which they have not shown they've done.

      To compare to a coding test, it would be like the first student to submit their program taking credit for the "first application done" without any grading by the teacher having been done yet. Whether it's an A+ or a steaming pile of bugs, nobody knows yet. (Please, no Microsoft jokes.)

      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        My understanding is that testing correctly in immunology of this sort isn't hard. It's just very time consuming. You need a lot of repetitions and minor adjustments between them.

        The thing being done everywhere right now is various attempts to attack the questions of "which stages of testing can we skip and still get a functioning end product" and "what are the novel ways of testing that are much faster". This is a question being addressed in a variety of different ways. Some parts were clearly a low hanging

        • by spitzak ( 4019 )

          I am under the impression that quite a few people world wide have been injected with "covid vaccines", many of them before anybody was injected with this Russian one. In all the cases they still want to see if in fact the vaccine works, so this one is no further along than many others.

      • ATM we have 170 (onehundretseventy) candidate for a working vaccine.
        FYI.

      • It almost certainly works, the question is how safe it is. To answer that question we'd need to look at their data.

        If it's safe, then it might be worth releasing to the public so high-risk individuals can get the vaccine, rather than getting the sickness.
        • It almost certainly works, the question is how safe it is.

          Hogwash, there is a long history of vaccines failing to be effective in practice even when they got to a phase 3 trial.

          If you didn't know that, if you thought that phase 3 was only for safety testing, just stop talking.

          • It looks like they didn't go through normal trails the way we did here, so it doesn't really make sense to talk about "phase 3" trials. Rather it looks like they injected people and exposed them to coronavirus directly. In the first phase, to get around safety regulations and get the vaccine out faster, doctors injected themselves to make sure it was safe. To be sure, we need to see their data.
    • This vaccine has nothing to do with phage therapy. Soviets were not pioneers of adenovirus vectors. These vectors were developed in the west.

      • by jblues ( 1703158 )
        That's not what was being suggested. Phage therapy was an example of Russian biotech innovation, evidence of some credentials in the field.
    • From what I can tell, this hasn't passed the standard third phase trial.

      They are deploying it without a third-stage trial. That's why they're "first".

    • The russian vaccine has not passed the standard third phase trial. They say the registration makes it available for small scale emergency use. Beginning next year it may be available for general use if phase 3 goes well. By then there will be other vaccines ready I think.
      So really, this registration news is nothing out of the ordinary. Just that the Russians are doing a fairly decent job , which is a bit surprising .

    • That said, Soviets had some incredible biotech that West was decades behind in when Iron Curtain fell, and they're still undisputed world leaders in many of those as much of Western academia attaches a stigma to "those fields that Soviets had a massive lead in". One good example here is phage therapies, i.e. treating bacterial infections with families of viruses that predate on bacteria.

      What a load of hooey. They were spending money researching things that the rest of the world hadn't found useful. They also invested heavily in a propaganda effort to be seen as more advanced. It is a neat trick; research stuff that is already known not to work well, and you can claim to be more advanced even while having hospitals that are less capable of saving lives or healing the sick.

      It is pathetic that 30+ years after they stopped spending money on the propaganda, you're still falling for it.

      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        I guess it has come to this. There are people so fucking dumb, that they genuinely will attack those they hate even if they have a chance of having done something that will significantly benefit the world if successful, and cause them no harm if they failed.

  • The state-run Gamaleya institute came under fire after researchers and its director injected themselves with the prototype several months ago, with specialists criticizing the move as an unorthodox and rushed way of starting human trials.

    Why would this be controversial? I mean there's just a few possible outcomes, right?

    • Vaccine does nothing. No harm, no foul.
    • Vaccine has serious side-effects. For argument's sake, let's say death. That is: couple of researchers / doctors / lab personnel die.
    • Vaccine works. Bringing "significant % of the world's population vaccinated" forward in time.

    Wouldn't the last outcome be immensely more valuable than the risk of losing a couple of researchers / lab workers? Even if the odds of the vac

    • Well it is a communicable disease, so by injecting themselves I suppose they could have spread it.

    • My understanding of the Adenovirus vaccines is that it's a extremely effective route the first time it's used. The second time is depreciated greatly and beyond that you essentially become immunized against that pathway- your body will fight off the vaccine versus whatever disease it's attempting to emulate, rendering it useless. Is SARS-CoV-2 bad enough to warrant eliminating that pathway for future immunizations of a large swath of humanity? Probably not. It's bad but there's no saying how much worse the
      • We have only history to look at.

        Something could be worse, but it's been about a century since something definitively was, and about 50 years since something was really even comparable.
    • in Soviet Russia... vaccine test you
  • According to the Washington Post did Russia use hackers to steal the data to make the virus.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

    I guess this means... In Russia are vaccines made by hackers.

    • Sorry, to bring it to you: making a vaccine is so easy, it is not worth stealing anything from anyone.
      You would need to wait till the other one has some results - take a month, minimum. Then steal them. Then reproduce them, now you are at about 3 month delay.
      It is much easier to simply start when you want to start, and don't waste those 3 month delay.

  • It’s just saline solution. They’re going to start their “program” and talk about how they’re leading the world in vaccinations, infuriating Trump. Putin will offer the vaccine to us. Trump will buy a billion doses for $10B (so not other country can buy more and catch up to us). We’ll all get saline injections, Russia will be $10B richer.

  • His lips are moving.

    This "vaccine" was tested on 38 healthy people and produced 142 adverse effects in them. It's effectiveness against covid-19 is unknown. All we know is that 38 healthy adults got mildly sick from it.

  • Russian Idiom? (Score:2, Informative)

    I noticed what seemed to be a couple odd hedges (especially when quoting the former KGB agent who should be able to lie quite well). First, Putin says that as far as he knew, this was the first in the world: is that a standard phrase that people use or did nobody research and tell him? Also:

    I know that it works quite effectively, it forms a stable immunity and, I repeat, has passed all the necessary checks.

    He didn't say what the "necessary checks" were and didn't actually say it was safe.

    Putin also said that one of his daughters had been vaccinated against the coronavirus, commenting, “In this sense, she took part in the experiment.”

    I understand that one of the perks of power is hooking up your family and friends, but the daughter in question does not seem to have bee

  • by mbkennel ( 97636 ) on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @08:43PM (#60392047)

    The money quote: "Clinical trials of the Russian vaccine have been completed in less than two months and phase three trials are set to begin Wednesday, despite the vaccine having already been registered"

    In other words, the clinical trials have *NOT* been completed in any normal sense. They're starting Phase 3 trials now, after some competing vaccines have already started their Phase 3 trials. Putin simply ordered the decision to be "registered" before it's ready.

    In particular the Oxford vaccine, which is also based on an adenovirus vector (and the lab has been working previously on this class well before Sars-CoV-2) started Phase 3 trials some time ago. And that's likely to be a high quality vaccine with good science from a lab with documented history. One important point is that they're using a monkey and not human adenovirus vector---important because human adenoviruses (some common colds) may already induce some immunity to them so they could be less effective in those patients, but virtually none has been previously infected with the monkey adenovirus.

  • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @08:48PM (#60392061) Journal
    Surprised that it's not China that claimed to have one by now.
  • There's an immunization reversal joke in there somewhere.

  • The whole thing started for cosmetic reasons, yes?

    Probably won't have such a drastic side effect

    Probably

  • Last I checked the World Health Organization said it hadn't received enough information to register it....and that was earlier today, but after Russia had announced the availability.

    (Well, actually the availability is pretty sparse. It's available to medical workers and teachers on an optional basis. They say they'll make it available more widely later. This looks like claiming that a phase 3 test is public availability...only without making medical oversight records available. That's not considered goo

  • I always said viral vector cures would be to the future, what antibiotics is to the past.

    What I dislike is the early registration, *just* to say "first".
    I swear, Putin is THE real-world troll. All he needs is plastic surgery to look like Trollface.gif. :)

    But at least this is a good thing to all of us, so even if Hitler had brought it, ... I'd take it.

  • This vaccine brought to by the Umbrella Corporation.
    What is the worst that could happen?

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