New Delhi, September 4: Russia is in close dialogue with the Indian government and the leading drug manufactures of India regarding the localization of production of Sputnik V vaccine in India, said Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) on Friday.

On August 11, the Sputnik V vaccine developed jointly by RDIF and the Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology was registered by the Ministry of Health of Russia and became the world's first registered vaccine against COVID-19. According to Russian researchers, Sputnik V is a human adenoviral vector vaccine which fights against coronavirus disease. COVID-19 Vaccine Update: Russia in Dialogue With India For Localised Production of 'Sputnik V'.

"India has historically been a very important partner of Russia. India is one of the leading countries in production. Around 60 percent of all the vaccines in the world are produced in India. We are in close dialogue with the corresponding ministries and the India government and the leading manufacturer of the country regarding localisation of production of Sputnik V vaccine in India. And we have achieved certain agreements with the leading companies," Dmitriev said in response to an ANI query on the current talks between India and the Russian government on Sputnik V vaccine.

"We do recognise India and it's potential to become one of the support for the production of the vaccine not only in Indian markets but for other countries too. We very much appreciate the well- balanced approach expressed by the Indian partners as from the very beginning they started asking questions how our vaccine works and we appreciate it that they did not try to attack our vaccine but try to understand it," Dmitriev adding that their (India's) desire to understand our vaccine got to realize that their approach based on the human adenoviral vaccine platform is the most reasonable approach.

We are very grateful to India for their approach and its openness said the CEO of RDIF. On Friday, a medical journal The Lancet has published the results of clinical trials of Phase I-II of the Russian vaccine demonstrating its safety and efficacy.

"Phase I-II clinical trials of Sputnik V showed no serious adverse events (SAE, Grade 3) for any of the criteria, while the incidence of serious adverse events for other candidate vaccines ranged from 1 per cent to 25 per cent," RDIF press note stated. COVID-19 Vaccine Update: Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Prevents Severe Clinical Infection in Hamsters, Says Study.

"In 100 per cent of participants in the clinical trials, Sputnik V generated a stable humoral and cellular immune response. The level of virus-neutralizing antibodies of volunteers vaccinated with Sputnik V was 1.4-1.5 times higher than the level of antibodies of patients who had recovered from COVID-19," RDIF press note further read.

Commenting on a research paper published in The Lancet, Dmitriev, said:"The publication in The Lancet journal confirms the high safety and efficacy of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V. We are now witnessing a change in the global approach towards the registration of vaccines with the USA, UK, China and other countries following Russia's path in fast-tracking registration."

First results of the ongoing post-registration clinical trials involving 40,000 volunteers are expected to be published in October-November, researchers said.

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