Russia and China ‘widely vaccinating’ but we will wait until 2021 at least for safe version, Prof. Luke O’Neill tells Derry Féile

Prof. O’Neill said safety checks deployed by western laboratories may not be utilised in the same way by Beijing and Moscow.

Scientists here will, however, be watching major population trials with interest to assess the vaccines’ effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2. This week Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that ‘Sputnik V,’ developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, had been approved for public use with scaled production planned for September.

The Tianjin-based company CanSino Biologics had already had its Ad5-nCoV vaccine approved for human use by the Chinese government.

Speaking at Féile this week Prof. O’Neill said: “You’ve also got vaccines in Russia and China allegedly being used widely already.

“They would have skipped some of the safety testing which would give you some concern but certainly let’s see what happens to them.

“But they are using similar technologies to some of the vaccines being tested in the UK and the US, for instance, so that might give us a bit more comfort if we see effects there,” he said.

The Dublin scientist said he was hopeful of a vaccine next year.

“If we’re lucky we might have it in the middle of next year, would be my opinion. The reason is safety testing, by the way.

“That’s why these things take so long because you have to be very careful. By 2021 at some stage we’re hopeful,” he said.