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Russian Sovereign Investment Fund Head Dmitriev on Vaccine: Just the Facts
14 August 2020
EIRNS—Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russia Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), has called out the blatant failure of the West to provide any rational account of the announcement of their COVID-19 vaccine. This is a quick summary of the character of their project, taken from his “Forbidden Op-Ed: The Sputnik Vaccine as a Lifesaving Global Partnership.” The Russian National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, or the Gamaleya Center, is named after Nikolai Gamaleya, who studied under Louis Pasteur and was an early developer of vaccines in Russia. The center has developed a technological platform for work on viruses since the 1980s. Adenoviruses, found in the human adenoids, used to convey genetic material from another virus. So the adenovirus’s infection-causing gene is removed, and what is inserted is an engineered gene with the code of another virus’s protein. That platform has proven to work over the years, both with influenza and MERS (which is a coronavirus). Genetic modification is the key. “[A]all Russian researchers had to do was to extract a coding gene from the spike of the novel coronavirus and implant it into a familiar adenovirus vector [delivery agent] for delivery into a human cell.” Since a booster has been found to be needed to secure a long-lasting immunity, an extra wrinkle was developed in Russia. A certain amount of immunity is developed against the initial injection, so Russia developed the booster using a second adenovirus delivery system (AD26 instead of AD5), tricking the body into not using any of its newly-developed immunity against the booster. Russia had already tested the “two-vector” approach with a vaccine against Ebola. The Russians first tested their vaccine on hamsters because they were known to have a high death rate for COVID-19. With the vaccine, they showed both 100% protection and “an absence of lung-damage after they received a lethal infection dose.” Their Phase 2 tests on humans also developed a 100% immunity without any significant side-effects. Now that the appropriate registration process has been accomplished with their Department of Health, they are legally able to publish detailed information, showing, e.g., “exact levels of antibodies as shown by several third-party tests as well as by Gamaleya’s proprietary test.” Those important details are on their webpage (https://sputnikvaccine.com/newsroom/) and in the appropriate scientific journals. [dms] |