The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund) announces that the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus has been granted full permanent approval by Russia’s Health Ministry. It had previously held temporary emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Russian regulator.

Sputnik V was authorized on August 11, 2020, becoming the world’s first vaccine against COVID-19 to be granted emergency use authorization. Sputnik V has been authorized in 71 countries with a total population of over 4 billion people. Its one-component version, Sputnik Light, is authorized in over 30 countries, both as a standalone vaccine and a universal booster to other vaccines.

A unique comparative study conducted at Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Italy by a team of 12 Italian and 9 Russian scientists led by Francesco Vaia, Director of the Spallanzani Institute and Alexander Gintsburg, Director of the Gamaleya Center has shown that Sputnik V vaccine demonstrates more than 2 times higher titers of virus neutralizing antibodies to Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant than 2 doses of Pfizer vaccine (2.1 times higher in total and 2.6 times higher 3 months after vaccination).

The study was conducted in the equal laboratory conditions on comparable sera samples from inpiduals vaccinated with Sputnik V and Pfizer with a similar level of IgG antibodies and virus neutralizing activity against Wuhan variant. Sputnik V showed significantly smaller (2.6 times) reduction of virus neutralizing activity against Omicron as compared to reference Wuhan variant than Pfizer vaccine (8.1-fold reduction for Sputnik V in contrast to 21.4-fold reduction for Pfizer vaccine).