MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th May, 2021) Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that although global markets decided to go with the COVID-19 vaccine made by US company Moderna, it would be clear how good the vaccine really is no sooner than in about a decade.
On Wednesday, the World Vaccine Congress named Moderna as the best vaccine against the coronavirus. The director of Russia's Gamaleya Research center, which developed the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, slammed the decision as politically motivated.
"Global markets decided to support US vaccine Moderna, which another US-European company is competing against, and it is doing so quite aggressively. But these are their concerns," Putin said at a meeting with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova via video link.
According to the Russian president, foreign expert's praise of the vaccine as innovative and advanced will take "10 years or so" to be validated based on actual results.
"Today we see that, unfortunately, the global race between various pharmaceutical companies is escalating," Putin added.
Speaking about domestic vaccines, the Russian president announced that the Sputnik Light single-dose vaccine was ready for registration.
"I know that today one of our other vaccines, Sputnik Light, is already ready for registration," Putin said.
Around the same time, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said that Russia had already registered the single-dose vaccine.
Sputnik Light is the first component of double-component Sputnik V, the world's first registered vaccine based on recombinant human adenovirus serotype number 26 (rAd26) vector.
