Eager to promote what Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed is the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine, the Ministry of Health has released a short video of its production process, according to a report.
The 40-second clip shows several masked people clad in blue coveralls working in a lab, where a variety of machines are seen in action behind partitions, Agence France-Presse reported.
Meanwhile, another short promotional video for the vaccine was posted by Sputnik News, a state-controlled news agency.
The CGI footage — created by the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the country’s sovereign wealth fund – shows the coronavirus, with its distinctive spikes, engulfing the Earth and hovering in space.
The Sputnik V vaccine — made to look like the former Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial Earth satellite in 1957 – then orbits the rapidly shrinking virus as the globe reappears.
Last week, Putin announced that his country had officially registered the world’s first novel coronavirus vaccine, developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, saying it offers “sustainable immunity” and that one of his daughters was inoculated.
Scientists and experts in several countries reacted with skepticism about the vaccine’s efficacy and safety — cautioning that the rush to roll out the inoculation before extensive Phase 3 trials could backfire.
