Preliminary data from an ongoing small-scale clinical trial conducted to ascertain the advantages of administering alternating COVID-19 vaccines has shown that AstraZeneca and Sputnik Light vaccines generated strong antibody response among the trial’s participants.
In an official statement, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said that the clinical trial was launched in February this year in Azerbaijan and has enrolled more than 100 participants so far.
The preliminary data has been obtained from 20 participants who joined in the small-scale clinical trial initially. They were administered the first dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine followed by the second dose of Sputnik Light after 29 days.
Almost two months after the second dose, nearly 85% of the participants developed four times more neutralizing antibodies in comparison to the antibodies produced after two doses of AstraZeneca or two-dose of Sputnik Light.
Moreover, none of the trial’s participants reported any serious adverse events or cases of Coronavirus infection after receiving AstraZeneca and Sputnik Light vaccines.
Besides, Gamaleya Center, the manufacturer of Sputnik Light vaccine, R-Pharm, AstraZeneca’s manufacturer in Russia, RDIF, and AstraZeneca have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to expand the small-scale clinical trial in the coming months.
Sputnik Light is the first component of Sputnik V, the world’s first registered COVID-19 vaccine. It has an efficacy rate of 80%, which is higher than a number of various two-dose vaccines.
It is based on a human adenoviral vector platform, which is safe and effective. The use of the human adenoviral vector platform in vaccine development started in 1953, which has proven to be safe and effective in hundreds of large-scale clinical trials since then.
Developed collectively with Oxford University, the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has an efficacy rate of 63% against symptomatic infection. It is based on an adenovirus vector platform, which is the same technology used by the Coronavirus vaccine developed by Johnson and Johnson (J&J).