(UTVNEWS | COLOMBO) – A third coronavirus vaccine has been approved for use in India amid a deadly second wave of infections.
Russia’s Sputnik V has been deemed to be safe, and works in a way similar to the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab which is being made in India as Covishield.
Sputnik V gives around 92% protection against Covid-19, late stage trial results published in The Lancet reveal.
India has so far given more than 100 million doses of two approved vaccines – Covishield and Covaxin.
Sputnik V’s approval came on a day when India overtook Brazil to become the country with the second-highest number of cases globally.
With the total case tally of more than 13.5 million cases, India is now only behind the United States which has reported more than 31 million cases. With 13.4 million cases, Brazil is now at number three.
The government aims to vaccinate 250 million “priority people” by the end of July. But experts say that the pace of vaccination has been slow and unless the drive is scaled up, the target could be missed.