Clinical trials of a combination of anti-COVID-19 vaccines “Sputnik V” and AstraZeneca will start in the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan next week, and then will take place also in Saudi Arabia, Interfax reports with reference to the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriyev.
“Clinical trials should start next week in Azerbaijan and the UAE, perhaps a little later – in Saudi Arabia,” Dmitriev said in an interview with BBC World Service.
The head of the RDIF noted that AstraZeneca has an excellent vaccine.”
“We are partners with them. And we want to test whether it is possible to combine the injection of AstraZeneca vaccine and the injection of Sputnik V. We are confident that this can give very good efficacy and will also be very effective in fighting new mutations”, he added.
Earlier, the scientific journal The Lancet published the results of III phase of clinical studies of the Sputnik V vaccine. According to him, the effectiveness of the Russian anti-COVID-19 drug was 91.6% based on the analysis of data from 19,866 volunteers who received the first and second vaccine injection or placebo.