FALSE: Russia has not started production of a COVID-19 vaccine
The vaccine in question has only passed one of two stages needed in order to advance into further production and clinical trials
An article claiming that Russia has started production of a COVID-19 vaccine is MISLEADING.
According to the post, shared on Opera News website, medical researchers at a Russian university have completed human trials of the essential COVID-19 vaccine.
The primary source of this claim seems to be a report from the Russian news agency Tass.com. The report says that the research shows the vaccine is effective and safe to use in humans, but it fails to indicate that this was just the initial of two stages in the first phase of a clinical trial.
The news was also reported by Russian state-controlled news agency Sputnik News, and tweeted by the Russian embassy in India.
However, the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), the oldest medical school in Russia, posted a news report dated July 10, on its website, clearly stating that this was the first phase of the study and further human testing will be required. Sechenov University was one of the sites where human trials of the vaccine — developed by Russia’s Gamalei Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology — were conducted.
The United States National Library of Medicine provides a database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies currently being conducted around the world on its website. “Gam-COVID-Vac Lyo”, developed by Gamalei institute, is among the vaccine candidates listed in Phase-I human trial.
The World Health Organization (WHO) document on COVID-19 vaccine candidates also lists the vaccine being developed by Gamalei institute in Phase-I, which means the vaccine needs to go through further human trials before it is considered safe enough for approval for large-scale production.
WHO lists only two potential vaccines as having reached the advanced stage of human trials; one developed by Chinese firm Sinovac, and Viral Vector Vaccine from the Oxford University-AstraZeneca.
According to The New York Times vaccine tracker, three new vaccines are in the third phase of clinical trials. These are the jointly developed AstraZeneca-University of Oxford from England, and Sinopharm and Sinovac from China. There is also a fourth vaccine in the final phase of trial, but this is an old vaccine for tuberculosis being tested to see if it can also protect against coronavirus.
PesaCheck has looked into an article claiming that Russia has started production of a COVID-19 vaccine that is safe for human use, and finds it is MISLEADING.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker Sylvia Makinia and edited by PesaCheck Copy Editor Rose Lukalo.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water/sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.
