Russia’s Gamaleya Institute, which pioneered the vaccine cocktail approach to combat COVID-19, has urged vaccine producers to come on board for ‘mix and match’ trials with Sputnik V. 

Sputnik joined trials with AstraZeneca in February for a vaccine cocktail; however, in May, the Russian health ministry declined to approve clinical trials over the lack of documents and information needed to verify the efficacy and safety of the combined vaccine.

Both AstraZeneca and Sputnik V vaccines involve two doses – an initial shot and one booster.

‘Open for mix and match a Covishield in India’

“Vaccine cocktail advocates, we were the 1st to start joined trials with AstraZeneca in February and will be announcing more collaborations soon. We urge other vaccine producers to join forces with us for mix & match trials. This is the way to immunity for the global community,” said Sputnik in a tweet.

Meanwhile, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) is planning to release the Sputnik V and Astrazeneca ‘mix and match’ vaccine results by the end of July.

Addressing a press conference, Kirill Dmitriev, CEO, RDIF, said that high efficacy is expected from the trials and said that Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology was open for mix and match a Covishield in India.

We believe there will be a great result: RDIF

“We are open for mix and match a Covishield in India. We believe there will be a great result. Covishield is the same vaccine as Astrazeneca, so we believe that trials will show high efficacy. We hope that the Serum Institute of India (SII) can produce Sputnik V and mix and match as well. It will be a true partnership,” said Dmitriev.

The first batch of Sputnik vaccines is expected to be produced at SII’s facilities starting September. The two parties plan to produce over 300 million doses of the vaccine in India per year.