NMRA approves emergency use of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine here

Laboratory technologists welcome the move

By Rathindra Kuruwita

State Minister of Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals Prof. Channa Jayasumana yesterday announced that the National Medical Regulatory Authority of Sri Lanka had approved the Emergency use of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine.

Earlier this month leading British medical publication, The Lancet, stated that the interim results from a phase 3 trial of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine had shown a consistent strong protective effect across all participant age groups.

Lancet said: “The vaccine uses a heterologous recombinant adenovirus approach using adenovirus 26 (Ad26) and adenovirus 5 (Ad5) as vectors for the expression of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein. The use of two varying serotypes, which are given 21 days apart, is intended to overcome any pre-existing adenovirus immunity in the population. Among the major COVID vaccines in development to date, only Gam-COVID-Vac uses this approach; others, such as the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine, use the same material for both doses. The earlier vaccine for Ebola virus also developed at Gamaleya National Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology (Moscow, Russia), was similar, with Ad5 and vesicular stomatitis virus as the carrier viruses, and the general principle of prime boost with two different vectors has been widely used experimentally.”

President of the College of Medical Laboratory Science, Ravi Kumudesh yesterday said that they were happy about the decision as the country needed an mRNA vaccine.

“Sputnik-V is an mRNA vaccine and we have so far ignored mRNA vaccines. Covidshield vaccine is a more traditional vaccine and it will not be effective against coronavirus variants. This is what reports from France and South Africa suggests. That’s why we have insisted on an mRNA vaccine from the start. Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines need to be stored in extremely cold temperatures and thus not feasible here. But Sputnik-V doesn’t have that problem. I am not saying bring Sputnik-V and start injecting people from next week. But our dependence on covidshield is more dangerous.”

Kumudesh said that the SPC had said it was willing to work with Russians to produce Sputnik-V here and that it was a commendable decision. Sri Lanka had the expertise to produce vaccines and that if such an initiative came about it would also be an opportunity to take in talented scientists into the Ministry of Health.