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TOPIC: General Studies 2
- Health
In News: In a move that will further strengthen the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, Russia authorised the one-shot Sputnik Light version of its Covid vaccine for use.
The Sputnik Light vaccine
According to Russia’s health ministry, Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, and the Russian Direct Investment Fund – who are the developers of the vaccine, the data for Sputnik Light was taken 28 days after it was administered as part of the country’s mass vaccination program between December 5th and April 15th.
Russia has named India, South Korea and China among the countries that will produce Sputnik Light.
The mechanism: A recombinant vaccine uses specific parts of the virus. Since they are made using only pieces of the virus, they result in an extremely strong immune response that targets key parts of the virus. They can be administered to everyone and even people with weak immune systems and long-term health problems. However, a limitation of this vaccine is it may need booster shots to continue to provide protection against diseases.
Conclusion
Experts say that a single dose COVID-19 vaccine will help vaccinate twice as many people in the same amount of time, but the long term protection of these vaccines remain unclear, without the backing of robust clinical efficacy data.
However, a single-dose vaccine would have benefit over a two-dose vaccine in that it could be administered to twice as many people in the same amount of time and vaccinating as many people as possible as quickly as possible is key to controlling the outbreak.
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