Russia has arrived in the global vaccine race. The country’s Sputnik V two-shot vaccine has been shown to be 91.6 percent effective against symptomatic COVID-19 and is completely effective against severe cases, according to a new peer-reviewed study released Tuesday. There had been a lot of skepticism surrounding Russia’s shot, which was approved by Russian authorities back in August, due to its incredibly rapid development and a lack of reliable published trial data. But the findings, which came as a result of a large-scale clinical trial published in the British medical journal the Lancet, will help it cast off that doubt. The efficacy rate is similar to Western vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. The Sputnik V has already been given to more than two million people world-wide, including in Argentina, Serbia, and Algeria. It does not require special deep-freeze refrigeration.
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