MOSCOW (AP) — While excitement and enthusiasm greeted the Western-developed coronavirus vaccine when it was rolled out, the Russian-made version has received a mixed response, with reports of empty Moscow clinics that offered the shot to health care workers and teachers — the first members of the public designated to receive it.
Kremlin officials and state-controlled media touted the Sputnik V vaccine as a major achievement after it was approved Aug. 11. But among Russians, hope that the shot would reverse the course of the Covid-19 crisis has become mixed with wariness and skepticism, reflecting concerns about how it was rushed out while still in its late-stage testing to ensure its effectiveness and safety.
Russia faced international criticism for approving a vaccine that hasn't completed advanced trials among tens of thousands of people, and experts both at home and abroad warned against its wider use until the studies are completed.
Despite those warnings, authorities started offering it to certain high-risk groups, such as front-line medical workers, within weeks of approval. Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya Institute that developed the vaccine, said last week over 150,000 Russians have gotten it.
One recipient was Dr. Alexander Zatsepin, an ICU specialist in Voronezh, a city 310 miles south of Moscow, who received the vaccine in October.
"We've been working with Covid-19 patients since March, and every day when we come home, we worry about infecting our family members. So when some kind of opportunity to protect them and myself appeared, I thought it should be used," he said.
But Zatsepin said he still takes precautions against infection because studies of the vaccine's effectiveness aren't over.
"There is no absolute confidence yet," he said.
After Britain announced Dec. 2 it had approved a vaccine developed by drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech, President Vladimir Putin told authorities to start a large-scale inoculation campaign, a sign of Moscow's eagerness to be at the front of the race against the pandemic.
Russia approved its vaccine after it was tested on only a few dozen people, touting it as "the first in the world" to receive a go-ahead. Developers named it "Sputnik V," a reference to the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the world's first satellite during the Cold War.
More than just national pride is at stake. Russia has recorded more than 2.7 million cases of Covid-19, and over 49,000 deaths, and it wants to avoid another damaging lockdown of its economy.
On Dec. 2, Putin cited a target of over 2 million doses in the coming days. Despite such a limited supply for a nation of 146 million, Moscow immediately widened who was eligible for it. Shots are free to everyone in medical or educational facilities, both state and private; social and municipal workers; retail and service workers; and those in the arts.
The European Medicines Agency said it has not received a request from the vaccine makers to consider licensing it for use in the EU, but some data have been shared with the World Health Organization. The U.N. agency does not typically approve vaccines itself but waits for regulatory agencies to weigh in first. The Russian vaccine is reportedly under consideration for use in a global effort led by WHO to distribute Covid-19 vaccines to poorer countries.
Unlike in the U.K., where the first shots are going to the elderly, Sputnik V is going to those aged 18 to 60 who don't have chronic illnesses and aren't pregnant or breastfeeding.
Putin himself hasn't gotten a Russian-made shot yet. The 68-year-old Russian leader said the shots in Russia are currently being recommended to people of a certain age, adding that "vaccines have not yet reached people like me." "But I will definitely do it, as soon as it becomes possible," Putin told the annual news conference Thursday.
