A leading expert says he’d be “very surprised” if the EU doesn’t approve the use of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine.
Professor Kingston Mills - Professor of Experimental Immunology at Trinity College Dublin - said the data around the vaccine is ‘great’.
However, he dismissed suggestions that European Medicines Agency (EMA) regulators are ‘dragging their heels’ over approving it.
With vaccine supplies remaining a headache for the EU, experts have said the Russian-produced jab could help boost supplies.
An EMA rolling review of the data around the vaccine is ongoing, while one Lancet study showing the jab was almost 92% effective in protecting against symptomatic COVID-19.
With some eastern European countries looking to give the Sputnik vaccine emergency authorisation, the EMA has ‘urgently advised’ member states to hold off until they have more data about it.
It comes as the EMA is expected to give the Johnson & Johnson vaccine the green light tomorrow - meaning it would be the fourth to get EU approval.
Professor Mills told Newstalk Breakfast there are three other promising vaccines on the radar.
He said: “There’s NovaVax from the US, CureVac from Germany, and also the Sputnik vaccine from Russia.
“[Sputnik] looks great… the efficacy in that Lancet paper showed 92%.
“The EU is not dragging their heels, to be fair. They’re currently doing a rolling review - they’re looking at the data. They haven’t yet had an application for a full market authorisation yet… but they expect to get that soon.”
He said that Hungary, Slovakia and Montenegro have “started negotiating directly with the Russians” to regulate the vaccine - and Hungary has already given it emergency use authorisation.
He said: “They’re allowed to do that… but it’s frowned on by the EMA.
"The Russians were accusing the EMA of bias against the Russian vaccine... but to be honest that's a bit of a political thing.
“That vaccine will be looked at by the EMA, and I’ll be very surprised if it’s not licensed as well - it’s a very, very good vaccine.”
Vaccine delays
With governments and members of the public expressing their frustration over vaccine delays, Professor Mills explained making vaccines is a ‘highly sophisticated’ process.
He also pointed out that the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are more complicated to make than the Pfizer and Moderna ones.
He explained: “[In those vaccines] it’s actually a live virus, even though it doesn’t replicate in the body. So you have to grow that virus - it’s not straightforward, and it has to be grown under very, very stringent conditions.
“It takes a lot of time and resources and reagents.
"There were some issues around the reagents supply - if you remember back to around a year ago when PCR testing started, there were teething troubles because reagent supplies were an issue. It’s equivalent to that in some ways.
“We’re in the very fortunate position that lots of companies have vaccines that are working - all of them want to crank up production.”
However, he does believe the teething issues will be ‘ironed out’, alongside more vaccines being approved for use.
