Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against Covid is around 83% effective against the Delta variant, lower than previously thought, health minister Mikhail Murashko said. The vaccine’s developers in June said Sputnik V was 90% effective against the variant.”
The latest results show that effectiveness is around 83%,” the Tass news agency cited Murashko as saying.
Meanehile,the WHO said on Wednesday it will soon test three drugs used for other diseases to see if they might help patients sickened by Covid. The drugs were chosen by an independent panel. They include artesunate, a malaria drug, the cancer drug imatinib, and infliximab, currently used in people with diseases of the immune system.
Moreover, antibody levels are a good predictor for how effective Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccine is, according to a new study released on Tuesday, a finding which could help speed up future clinical trials for vaccines against the disease.
Regulators currently rely on large placebo-controlled studies to determine if a vaccine works, but the study, conducted by scientists from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Moderna and elsewhere, showed that measuring the antibody levels in vaccine recipients could also determine effectiveness.
The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that the Moderna vaccine was more effective in vaccine recipients with high levels of antibodies. These recipients also reported a lower rate of breakthrough infections after being vaccinated.
Combined with data about the Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines, Gilbert said there has been a "consistent accumulation of evidence" showing that antibodies can be used as an alternate marker for vaccine efficacy.