Opera News App, an online news platform that aggregates content from publishers as well as producing its own original content, posted this article claiming that medical researchers at a Russian university have completed human trials of the essential COVID-19 vaccine on its Kenyan portal.
The article is titled, “Good News. Russian (sic) has started producing Covid-19 vaccine,” as can be seen in the featured image above.
Background
Russia has so far recorded nearly 800,000 cases of COVID-19, with over 12,000 deaths. There have been many efforts to find a vaccine for the virus since its outbreak. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) lists only 2 potential vaccines as having reached the advanced stage of human trials: one by Chinese firm Sinovac, and the other Viral Vector Vaccine from the Oxford University-AstraZeneca.
Verification
The primary source of this claim seems to be a report from the Russian news agency tass.com, which says that the research shows the vaccine, is effective and safe to use in humans.
It, however, fails to indicate that this was just the initial of two stages in the first phase of a clinical trial as indicated on July 10, by the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University in this report.
Sechenov University was one of the sites where human trials of the vaccine developed by Russia’s Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, were conducted.
Russian news agency Sputnik News reported on the same and on July 12, 2020, the Russian embassy in India tweeted about the successful completion of the tests on volunteers.
WHO’s document on COVID-19 vaccine candidates also lists the vaccine being developed by Gamaleya institute in Phase-I, which means the vaccine needs to go through further human trials before it is considered safe enough for approval for large-scale production.
Verdict
The claim that Russia has started production of a COVID-19 vaccine is misleading.
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