“Highly Unlikely” Patterns Can Be A Problem For The World’s First COVID-19 Vaccine

The outbreak of novel coronavirus happened back in January 2020. And within some days, the epidemic turned into a pandemic. It claimed numerous lives and led to the downfall of the global economy like never before. Scientists all around the world have been working to come up with a vaccine. And it seems like Russia came with the elixir.

On August 11, Russia’s government launched the COVID-19 vaccine for public distribution. It is developed by the Russian Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology. Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V) has passed all the necessary tests in the laboratories.

Director for research at Gamaleya Institute, Denis Logunov, stated,”[The vaccine] examination is to begin within days… There is a certain procedure of authorizing a batch for civilian use. It must pass the quality check of the medical watchdog Roszdravnadzor, “.

The vaccine has completed Phase I and Phase II two trial. But Phase III is still pending. But Russia conducted the trial only on 38 participants which is a small number. Additionally, the WHO also has to approve the civil use of the vaccine.

About 26 scientists, mostly working in Italy have raised questioned regarding the reliability of data proposed in the early stages of Sputnik V. The International peer-review stated that they have noticed some ” highly unlikely” patterns in Phase I and Phase II report.

The letter confronting the problem was published online. The open letter stated,

“On the ground of simple probabilistic evaluations, the fact of observing so many data points preserved among different experiments is highly unlikely, “.

However, scientists have said that they are basing the conclusions on the Russian trial result data. Meanwhile, the Gamaaleya instituted completed rejected the opinions of critics. Denis Logunov said,  “The published results are authentic and accurate and were examined by five reviewers at The Lancet, “. He further added that they presented the entire trial data to the Lancet.

One Friday Russia Publishes the reports of Phase I/II of the vaccine. It was conducted on 76 participants in June-July. The study clearly stated that the participants developed a positive immunity with nil side-effects.

On August 26, the Phase III trial of the vaccine has commenced. This will include 40,000 participants out of which 31,000 have already subscribed.