Promo video shows 'Sputnik V' - world's first registered Covid-19 vaccine - eradicating planet-sized coronavirus

To boldly go where no vaccine has gone before? A new video promoting Sputnik V, Russia’s vaccine against Covid-19, envisions the drug as its space namesake zapping into oblivion a giant coronavirus engulfing the entire planet.

The computer-generated animation has been published on the website created to explain and market the Russian vaccine by the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which bankrolled its development. Earlier this week, the formula became the first in the world to be registered. On Saturday, it was announced the vaccine had been put into production.

The drug, which is officially named ‘Gam-COVID-Vak,' is based on a previously tested platform and was approved after just two phases of clinical trials. The exception was made due to the severity of the international crisis caused by the pandemic. This prompted some foreign government officials and medical experts to criticize Moscow, saying Russia is recklessly cutting corners.

A proper Phase III trial involving tens of thousands of volunteers will still be carried out, the head of the lab that developed the vaccine said on Sunday. It's important to note that Sputnik V is not scheduled to enter general circulation until January, leaving four to five months for further observation of its efficiency and any possible side affects which may emerge. 

“We are submitting the first variant of the post-registration trial protocol on Monday. Considering the attention of the public and the media, I believe the Health Ministry will fast-track it and approve the proposal within a week. So in seven, maybe ten days the trial will be launched,” Aleksander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya National Research Center, which created the vaccine, told Russia’s TASS news agency.

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