DISINFO: Slovakia spreads fake news about Sputnik V
SUMMARY
The State Institute for Medicines (SIDC) in Slovakia violated the contract on Sputnik V as they tested vaccines in a laboratory which is not certified by the EU. It is also spreading disinformation and fake news against the Russian vaccine by saying that the Sputnik V vaccine given to Slovakia is not the same like the one presented in Lancet journal.
RESPONSE
This article looks like one more effort in a pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign about the EU, COVID-19 vaccination and Sputnik V.
Slovakia’s SUKL drug agency said the batches of Sputnik V vaccines it had received differed from those reviewed by international scientists and by the European Union regulator. Slovakia imported 200,000 doses of Sputnik V during March 2021. The rolling review of Sputnik V by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is still ongoing. Though approving the shot for therapeutic usage of the vaccine as an unregistered drug and receiving an initial shipment, it had not begun administering the shot, and the Slovak health ministry also requested its national drug agency to conduct a review.
Reservations and criticism of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine stem from the fact that Russia did not complete large trials to test the vaccine’s safety and efficacy before releasing it. Rolling out an inadequately vetted vaccine could endanger people who receive it. On September 4, 2020, scientists of the Gamaleya Institute responsible for the creation of the Sputnik V published an article in the scientific publication The Lancet showing results from phases 1 and 2 trials, which was immediately touted by pro-Kremlin media as the ultimate validation of the vaccine. However, the data was denounced as flawed by a group of prominent scientists and doctors headed by Enrico Bucci, a biology professor at Temple University in the U.S. Bucci warned about strange patterns in the data, such as duplicate values for different groups of patients, which he considered highly improbable.
The EMA is committed to applying the same regulatory approach and scientific rigour to all vaccine applications that meet European requirements for safety, efficacy and quality and is in dialogue with more than 50 vaccine developers from across the globe, including the Sputnik V developers from Russia.
For more detailed information on how Russia is using disinformation tactics to discredit other COVID-19 vaccines see here.