Rome: Studies of the Russian-made Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, which are expected to be conducted at Italy’s Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases (INMI), will allow researchers to see if the vaccine is effective in the fight against the virus’ variants, Francesco Vaia, the medical director of INMI, said in an interview with Sputnik.
Last week, Vaia told the Il Messaggero newspaper that the Russian Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology was going to send three staffers to Rome to join their Italian colleagues in studies the Sputnik V vaccine. On Saturday, the president of the central Lazio region, Nicola Zingaretti, said that the INMI was ready to start lab trials of the Gamaleya-developed Sputnik V once the relevant agreement was reached.
“We will conduct lab studies to see how the coronavirus strains such as those found in the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa, which troubled Europeans so much and which we have isolated in Spallanzani, are responsive to Sputnik V for the development of antibodies. If it shows efficacy against these variants, this will mean a big step forward for Europe, because obviously, it is extremely important for us at this time to have a vaccine that protects against different COVID-19 strains,” Vaia said.
The INMI medical director added that such contacts between the two institutions would make it possible to provide the results of these studies to the Russian side. According to Vaia, the first test results can be expected in April.
In February, the INMI submitted a positive opinion to the Italian Ministry of Health regarding the efficacy and safety of the Russian vaccine. The institute chief said that the country would send two inspectors to visit vaccine production sites in Russia.
Sputnik V has so far been approved in over 50 countries. In February, the prestigious Lancet medical magazine published a study confirming the vaccine’s efficacy at 91.6 percent. (Sputnik)
Italian institute to test Sputnik V vaccine’s efficacy against various COVID-19 strains
