India’s COVID-19 caseload went past 86 lakh on Wednesday, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 80.13 lakh, pushing the national recovery rate to 92.79 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry’s data.
The initial results are only the second to be published from a late-stage human trial in the global effort to produce vaccines that could halt a pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people and ravaged the world economy.
The results are based on data from the first 16,000 trial participants to receive both shots of the two-dose vaccine, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which has been backing its development and marketing it globally, said.
Russia registered its Covid-19 vaccine for public use in August, the first country to do so, though the approval came before the start of the large-scale trial in September.
“We are showing, based on the data, that we have a very effective vaccine,” said RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev, adding that it was the sort of news that the vaccine’s developers would talk about one day with their grandchildren.
Russia’s announcement follows swiftly on from results posted on Monday by vaccine developers Pfizer Inc and BioNTech. The drugmaker said that their shot was also more than 90% effective.
