The Defense Ministry knows in detail the funds and resources allocated from abroad to discredit the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, Major General Igor Konashenkov, the department's spokesperson said.
"A series of pseudo-analytical 'investigations' and false testimonies by 'eyewitnesses' about the alleged 'danger' of the Russian vaccine or the wholesale 'refusals' to vaccinate, including in the Russian Armed Forces, are being prepared in social networks and foreign grant-funded Russian-language Internet resources," he said.
According to Konashenkov, "informational sabotage" will not weaken the effectiveness of Russian vaccines and will not enhance the "healing power" of foreign analogs."
"Sputnik V" is the world's first COVID-19 preventive drug, the Ministry of Health registered it in mid-August. The vaccine was created at the Gamaleya Center based on a well-studied human adenovirus vector platform. During summer it successfully passed two stages of researches on volunteers at the age of 18 to 60 years old, who eventually formed an immune response and antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. Post-registration tests are now underway.
Vaccination has also begun. More than 150 thousand persons representing high-risk groups - doctors, teachers and social services employees - have already been vaccinated.
In the near future Russians will have an opportunity to be vaccinated against coronavirus with another Russian product - EpiVacCorona from the Vector Novosibirsk Research Center. Other Russian vaccines are being developed as well.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Mikhail Japaridze / TASS
Based on materials from RIA Novosti