The Russian vaccine against the novel coronavirus has been effective in more than 90% of individuals vaccinated in a trial study of 16,000 volunteers, the producer said on Wednesday.
Based on the numbers of those individuals who contracted the virus after being vaccinated or given a placebo, "the Sputnik V vaccine had an efficacy rate of 92 per cent," the producer said in a statement.
That rate is on par with an experimental vaccine developed by US pharma giant Pfizer and German firm BioNTech, the trial results of which were announced earlier this week.
Registered in August
Russia was the first country to approve its coronavirus vaccine for widespread use by the public, registering the Sputnik V vaccine in August.
Developed by the state's Gamaleya research centre, the vaccine was named Sputnik after the world's first man-made satellite, sent into orbit by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, a triumph in the space race with rival superpower the United States.
