Zambia Opts For Russian Covid-19 Vaccine

Zambia’s ambassador to Russia has revealed that the Zambian government is keen to get its hands on Russia’s experimental Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine as soon as it enters the market.

Ambassador Luwita told reporters that talks were already ongoing between the two countries’ health ministers.

“The Russian government has already exchanged correspondence with the Zambian government regarding rolling out of this vaccine. We are anxiously following the process of rolling out of the Sputnik V vaccine on the market so that we can access it,” he said. 

In August, Russia became the first country to unveil a registered coronavirus vaccine, beating out competition from the United States, the UK and China.

Since then, however,  the drug has been dogged with safety concerns and has still not been made available to the general public. 

Russia approved the vaccine after trialing it on only a few dozen subjects in a non-blind study and without critical Phase 3 trials which are key to establishing the safety and efficacy of a vaccine. 

Konstantin Chumakov, a senior biologist with the Global Virus Network, told CNN that these trials were simply not adequate for large scale immunisation.

“To do this, you need to immunize a whole lot of people and just wait until they will be infected and see whether they will have a lower incidence or they will have more severe disease. There is just nothing that can replace clinical trials.” He said. 

Talks between Zambia and Russia come as yesterday a team from Pfizer in the United States announced that their vaccine had cleared Phase 3 trials with 90% efficacy in preventing subjects from contracting Covid-19.

Some uncertainty remains over the Pfizer vaccine but other countries are already queuing up to order it, with the UK requesting some 40 million doses once it hits the market. 

So far Zambia has recorded 16,770 cases of coronavirus in total, with 349 deaths.