Scores of Russia’s business and political elite have been given early access to an experimental vaccine against COVID-19, according to people familiar with the effort and quoted by Bloomberg on Monday.
Top executives at companies including aluminum giant United Co. Rusal, as well as billionaire tycoons and government officials began getting shots developed by the state-run Gamaleya Institute in Moscow as early as April, the people said. They declined to be identified as the information is not public.
The Gamaleya vaccine, financed by the state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund and backed by the Defense Ministry, last week completed a phase 1 trial involving military personnel, according to Bloomberg. The institute hasn’t published results for the study, which involved about 40 people, but has begun the next stage of testing with a larger group.
Gamaleya’s press office couldn’t be reached immediately for comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who recovered from COVID-19 after being hospitalized with the virus in May, said he doesn’t know the names of anyone who’s received the institute’s vaccine.
Asked on a conference call with reporters on Monday if President Vladimir Putin had taken it, Peskov said, “It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to use an uncertified vaccine on the head of state,” adding that he wasn’t aware of other officials trying it.
The report comes several days after British officials said that Russian hackers have attempted to steal information on efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Russia has reported more than 750,000 cases of COVID-19, the fourth-largest total in the world, and Gamaleya’s program is on a faster track than many developers in the West. RDIF chief Kirill Dmitriev said last week phase 3 trials will start Aug. 3 and include thousands of people in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with the vaccine distributed nationally as early as September.
Western researchers typically run phase 3 trials for months to better understand safety and effectiveness.
Last week, US researchers reported that Moderna Inc’s experimental vaccine for COVID-19 showed it was safe and provoked immune responses in all 45 healthy volunteers in an ongoing early-stage study.