This is not a joke, unfortunately.
(Image courtesy of sm.mashable.com.)
Claim: Russian President Vladimir Putin recently offered high US and UN officials free doses of Russia's new COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine, dubbed the Sputnik V, has only been tested on 76 people and is very suspect.
Rating: TRUE
Explanation:
Putin really did offer a vaccine called Sputnik V to the officials, and said:
"I know that it works quite effectively, forms strong immunity, and I repeat, it has passed all the needed checks." (Source)
However, a group of non-Russian scientists said that the vaccine is very suspect. (Source)
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered UN staff free doses of the country’s COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, which has not completed clinical trials for efficacy and has not been thoroughly vetted for safety.
Still, Putin suggested that his offer was prompted by the desire to give the people what they want: “Some colleagues from the UN have asked about this, and we will not remain indifferent to them,” he said during a speech Tuesday at this year’s (virtual) General Assembly.
Putin made headlines last month after announcing that Russia has granted regulatory approval for the (limited) use of Sputnik V, the first country in the world to do so. He even boasted that one of his daughters had received her first dose of the vaccine.
But public health experts were quickly skeptical of the move, seeing it as merely a political stunt to give the appearance that Russia was “winning” the race to develop a vaccine against the pandemic coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. At the time, the vaccine had only been tested in two small clinical trials, involving just 76 people total—and the data from those small trials had not yet been released.
[top virologist Konstantin] Chumakov notes that neither of these vaccines has been fully authorized by international bodies or tested enough to say it is effective and safe, and the Russian Ebola vaccine was tried in Guinea only post-outbreak.
"This particular institute, they have developed several prototype vaccines, I wouldn't call them vaccines," Chumakov said. "I don't think that this institute has developed a vaccine in the last, you know, 30 years. They are very good in developing prototypes ... but I don't believe they have any experience in bringing products to the market."
—CNN
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said last month that he "seriously doubt(s)" Russia has proven its vaccine is safe and effective.
Many scientists there and abroad have been skeptical... questioning the decision to register [the vaccine] before Phase 3 trials that normally last for months and involve thousands of people.
—CNBC
Putin's daughter has also been given the vaccine. However, claims that she has since died are false.
Sources:
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