Sputnik V, the Russian vaccine was earlier launched in Hyderabad, and will now be available in several other cities, including Mumbai, Bangalore, and New Delhi etc., the company said in a press release. RIt has also received at least 3 million doses of Sputnik V.<\/p>\n
Fortis Healthcare is to make Sputnik V available in Gurgaon from Saturday and according to a press release by Fortis Healthcare, the two dose vaccine will be available as part of a \u201climited pilot roll out\u201d from Saturday in two hospitals of the private hospital chain in India, of which FMRI in Gurgaon is one.<\/p>\n
The company also said that registration on CoWIN is yet to be made open to the public once the commercial launch starts. The soft launch was done in Hyderabad on May 14 and under the massive vaccine drive campaign has been bolstered up to add 9 other cities.<\/p>\n
The Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company tests the cold storage arrangements of -18\u00b0C temperature in the cities, CoWIN integration, track and trace, and other logistical arrangements before the vaccine is to be launched commercially.<\/p>\n
Sputnik V has been received by several countries and Argentina claims that the vaccine has helped save millions of lives. The World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet approved the vaccine for emergency use but Hungary and Slovakia were the latest to give emergency use approval to the vaccine. More than 60 nations have given the vaccine emergency use approval.<\/p>\n
The Russian vaccine is an adenovirus viral vector vaccine for COVID-19 developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. It was registered on 11 August 2020 by the Russian Ministry of Health as Gam-COVID-Vac.\u00a0 The ‘V’ in its name means ‘Victory over COVID-19’ according to Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund.<\/p>\n
Gam-COVID-Vac was initially approved for distribution in Russia and then in 59 other countries (as of April 2021) on the preliminary results of Phase I\u2013II studies ultimately published on 4 September 2020.<\/p>\n
Approval in early August of Gam-COVID-Vac was met with media criticism in mass media and discussions in the scientific community as to whether approval was justified in the absence of robust scientific research confirming safety and efficacy. On 2 February 2021, an interim analysis from the trial was published in The Lancet, indicating 91.6% efficacy without significant side effects.<\/p>\n
Emergency mass administration of the vaccine began in December 2020 in countries including Russia, Argentina, Belarus, Hungary, Serbia, and the United Arab Emirates. By February 2021 over a billion doses of the vaccine had been ordered for immediate distribution worldwide.<\/p>\n