WanwisaDejnirattisai,DaminZhou,PiyadaSupasa,ChangLiu,Alexander J.Mentzer,HelenGinn,YuguangZhao,Helen M. E.Duyvesteyn,AekkachaiTuekprakhon,RungtiwaNutalai,BeibeiWang,Guido C.Paesen,CesarLopez-Camacho,JoseSlon-Campos,ThomasWalter,DonalSkelly,Sue Ann CostaClemens,Felipe GomesNaveca,ValdineteNascimento,FernandaNascimento,Cristiano Fernandesda Costa,ChristinaDold,RobertLevin,TaoDong,Andrew J.Pollard,Julian C.Knight,DerrickCrook,TeresaLambe,ElizabethClutterbuck,SagidaBibi,AmyFlaxman,MustaphaBittaye,SandraBelij-Rammerstorfer,
View ORCID ProfileSarahGilbert, Miles W.Carroll, PaulKlenerman, EleanorBarnes, Susanna J.Dunachie, Neil GPaterson, Mark AWilliams, David RHall, RubinHulswit, Thomas ABowden, Elizabeth E.Fry, JuthathipMongkolsapaya, JingshanRen, View ORCID ProfileDavid I.Stuart, Gavin R.Screaton
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.12.435194
This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [what does this mean?].
Terminating the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic relies upon pan-global vaccination. Current vaccines elicit neutralizing antibody responses to the virus spike derived from early isolates. However, new strains have emerged with multiple mutations: P.1 from Brazil, B.1.351 from South Africa and B.1.1.7 from the UK (12, 10 and 9 changes in the spike respectively). All have mutations in the ACE2 binding site with P.1 and B.1.351 having a virtually identical triplet: E484K, K417N/T and N501Y, which we show confer similar increased affinity for ACE2. We show that, surprisingly, P.1 is significantly less resistant to naturally acquired or vaccine induced antibody responses than B.1.351 suggesting that changes outside the RBD impact neutralisation. Monoclonal antibody 222 neutralises all three variants despite interacting with two of the ACE2 binding site mutations, we explain this through structural analysis and use the 222 light chain to largely restore neutralization potency to a major class of public antibodies.
Competing Interest Statement
GRS sits on the GSK Vaccines Scientific Advisory Board. Oxford University holds intellectual property related to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. AJP is Chair of UK Dept. Health and Social Care (DHSC) Joint Committee on Vaccination & Immunisation (JCVI) but does not participate in the JCVI COVID19 committee, and is a member of the WHO SAGE. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of DHSC, JCVI, or WHO. The University of Oxford has entered into a partnership with AstraZeneca on coronavirus vaccine development. The University of Oxford has protected intellectual property disclosed in this publication.
CoViD Vaccines and thrombotic events: Possibility of mRNA translation and spike protein synthesis by platelets?
Dear Editor
There have been reports of haemorrhage, blood clots and thrombocytopenia following administration of CoViD-19 vaccines [1]. The adverse events are primarily reported for genetic CoViD vaccines and have raised concerns over the safety of genetic vaccines for mass immunisation at global scale.
Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is an autoimmune condition characterized by low platelet counts manifested by spontaneous purpura, petechia, haematomas or fatal subarachnoid, intracerebral, or other internal bleeding. ITP secondary to CoViD-19 have been reported in many patients with CoViD-19 [2] and coagulopathy have been a major contributing factor to the high mortality associated with CoViD-19.
Besides SARS-CoV-2, various other pathogens are known to induce ITP, notably Helicobacter pylori, H3N2 influenza virus and the Dengue virus. It has been proposed that the antibodies produced by the body to clear the virus have a potential cross reactivity with surface antigens on platelets or megakaryocytes. This molecular mimicry had been proposed in the past as a classic mechanism responsible for the vaccine associated ITP. Antibody bound platelets and megakaryocytes undergo reticuloendothelial phagocytosis and a direct lysis by cytotoxic T-cells leading to thrombocytopenia [3].
Platelets are anucleate cells that continue to defy conventional logic; they are involved in mRNA translation and known to synthesise proteins for over fifty years [4]. In authors opinion, it is highly likely that RNA viruses can directly infect platelets and mRNA translation within platelets is a possible explanation for the autoimmune response against platelets instead of previously proposed molecular mimicry theory.
This is also a likely explanation for the thrombocytopaenia prevalence in patients infected with Dengue virus. Many patients with Dengue fever recover from thrombocytopaenia over time suggesting a highly selective immune response against infected platelets or megakaryocytes. In some patients with Dengue virus infection, this autoimmune response can manifest as ITP and consequent subarachnoid, intracerebral, or other internal haemorrhages, during the course of the disease result in fatal outcomes.
It is, therefore, not unreasonable to hypothesise that the genetic CoViD vaccines may also directly infect platelets and megakaryocytes triggering mRNA translation and consequent spike protein synthesis intracellularly. This may lead to autoimmune response against platelets and megakaryocytes resulting in reticuloendothelial phagocytosis and direct CD8+ T cell lysis.
There have been over 150 reports of post-CoViD19 vaccination thrombocytopenia recorded in the pharmacovigilance databases at VAERS [5] and MHRA [6], and at least one confirmed death in USA which is still under investigation [7]. ITP have also been previously reported with a number of other vaccines, such as flu, poliomyelitis, pneumococcal, hepatitis, MMR, and rabies. The vaccine mediated autoimmunity was proposed to be associated with both the antigen and vaccine constituents, for instance the trace proteins from the culture media (such as yeast proteins), adjuvants, preservatives, or formulation carriers [3].
In authors opinion, it is plausible that CoViD genetic vaccines may have a direct role in spurring autoimmune response against platelets that may clinically manifest in thrombocytopenia, haemorrhage, and blood clots. It, however, requires substantial evidence to confirm this hypothesis. Vaccines are one of the great discoveries in medicine that has improved life expectancy dramatically. Nonetheless, genetic vaccines are new, and their long-term safety evaluation is a key to identify potentially contraindicated group of subjects, for instance patients with history of blood disorders, past or current thrombocytopenia or pre-existing immunological conditions. European Medicines Agency (EMA) continues to investigate the recent thrombotic events in Europe, and we shall look forward to their findings [8].
Everyone will have heard of the situation in Europe right now, with a whole list of countries suspending dosing of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine. Sweden and Latvia joined that list today .But getting clarity on this is another thing entirely.
I have not been the biggest fan of the vaccine, because its initial rollout was (frankly) botched. It was difficult to figure out how efficacious it was, and that confusion persisted after further attempts to clear things up. The last figure I’ve seen is that the European Medicines Agency estimates the vaccine to be about 60% effective, and at the same time the EMA does not see safety concerns with it. But there are many member states of the EU who apparently disagree, citing reports of blood clotting problems and/or thrombocytopenia after dosing.
I think that there are several distinct levels to this problem. The first, obviously, is medical. The big question is, are the reports of vascular problems greater than one would expect in the vaccinated population as a whole? It’s not clear to me what the answer is, and it may very well be “No, they aren’t”. That CNBC link above quotes Michael Head at Southampton as saying that the data so far look like the problems show up at at least the same levels, and may even be lower in the vaccinated group. AstraZeneca has said that they’re aware of 15 events of deep vein thrombosis and 22 events pulmonary embolisms, but that’s in 17 million people who have had at least one shot – and they say that is indeed “much lower than would be expected to occur naturally in a general population of this size“. It also appears to be similar to what’s been seen with the other coronavirus vaccines, which rather than meaning “they’re all bad” looks like they’re all showing the same baseline signal of such events across a broad population, without adding to it.
In that case, this could be an example of what I warned about back in December (and many others have warned about as well), the post hoc ergo propter hoc “false side effects” problem. I’ve been looking this morning, and so far have not found anyone clearly stating that the problems seen are running higher in the vaccinated patients, anyway (if someone does come across such numbers or such a statement, I’ll amend this post immediately with a link). I realize that there’s a possibility (not a likely one, though) that some particular batch of vaccine is more problematic, but I haven’t seen any solid evidence of that, either
The second half of the medical problem is naturally what happens when you suspend dosing of what is, in many cases in the EU, the only vaccine available. We’ve been seeing cases falling here in the US ever since a peak on the first week of January – many of us were worried about what might have been a rise in February but which now just seems to have been a plateau, with cases continuing to drop since then. But many European countries are definitely seeing another wave of infections, and the EU case numbers as a whole are going in the opposite direction to the US ones. There are surely a lot of reasons for this, with new viral variants being one, slow vaccine rollouts being another, and now complete vaccination halts set to add even more. Put as bluntly as possible, even if the AZ/Oxford vaccine has these side effects (which again, I don’t see any evidence for yet), you are still very likely to kill more people by not giving it.
The next problem is a regulatory one. The EMA and the World Health Organization continue to endorse the vaccine, but that seems to mean little or nothing as one European country after another shuts down its use. I understand that the EMA does not have supranational authority in these matters, but there must be people there wondering what good their recommendations and regulatory approvals do, if this is how they can be dealt with. The EMA itself is meeting on Thursday for what should be some stressful discussions. Meanwhile, there are other countries (such as Belgium) whose authorities (so far) say that they see no need to stop using the vaccine at all.
It’s a mess. And it’s a mess that leads us right into the third problem, which is public confidence. The AZ/Oxford vaccine has been in trouble there since the day the first data came out. The efficacy numbers looked lower than the other vaccines that had reported by then, and as mentioned, the presentation of the data was really poorly handled and continued to be so for weeks. Now with these dosing suspensions, I have to wonder if this vaccine is ever going to lose the dark cloud it’s currently sitting under. Even if EU countries start dosing again in a few days, what are people going to think? And this fear and uncertainty can spill over into hesitancy for all the vaccines, of course, and that’s the last thing we need.
We’re about to get another batch of data, for better or worse. Reports are that the US trial of the vaccine has reached its events threshold, so we’ll be seeing completely new clinical efficacy numbers for this vaccine soon. That will be very interesting indeed – and while most of us were waiting to see what those efficacy figures would look like, now everyone will be looking at the safety numbers as well. I do not expect the vaccine to show any bad safety signals at all, let me say up front (I mean, it’s already been dosed 17 million times; that’s a bigger data set than any trial could ever give you). But will that matter to people who are scheduled to get it? Will it matter to the countries who have suspended dosing?
Let’s say that the efficacy numbers come in at a solid, inarguable 60%. You would want to see a higher number in a better world, but 60% is a damn sight better than not getting vaccinated at all. Which is effectively what a number of European countries have chosen to do instead. If I were living in one of those countries where the cases are heading right back up, I would bare my arm immediately for a 60% effective vaccine and hope that as many other people as possible did the same.
For all of our grousing about COVID-19 fatigue, a few novel trends are clear one year into the pandemic.
In the early weeks of 2021, Californians are staying home way more than we did in our pre-pandemic life. Even so, we’re heading out to shop, dine and work far more now than in March 2020, when state officials issued the first sweeping stay-at-home order, or the dark period that followed the winter holidays, when we hunkered down as coronavirus caseloads exploded.
And to the extent we are venturing out, we are using cars rather than resuming pre-pandemic commute patterns on buses and trains, a trend with troubling implications for transit services and the environment should it become long-standing.
The findings come from a Google compilation of vast troves of cellphone location tracking data, part of an ongoing effort the tech giant says it initiated to help leaders around the globe gauge the impact of coronavirus-related closures and travel restrictions. The mobility logs, drawn from phones with location trackers enabled, show patterns of trip frequency — broken out at country, state and regional levels — in daily snapshots from early 2020 through early March 2021. The baseline for comparison in terms of trip frequency is the first five weeks of 2020, before California and the U.S. initiated broad coronavirus-related restrictions.
Google groups its trip frequency data into categories based on the nature of the destination: for example, grocery and pharmacy; retail and restaurants; and work-related. In California, the fever lines for those categories in many ways trace the state’s yo-yoing response to the spread of the coronavirus, a series of shutdowns and reopenings that have grown more targeted and less restrictive as the pandemic has worn on.
On March 19, 2020, after declaring a pandemic emergency, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state’s first hard shutdown order, telling Californians to stay home except for essential needs and shuttering wide swaths of the service and retail sectors. The tracking data indicate residents took the order to heart: After an initial surge in trips to groceries and pharmacies in the days before the order took effect — presumably as people stocked up on provisions — outings plummeted across the board. By early April, trips to stores and restaurants, as well as work, had fallen more than 50% below the baseline. Grocery and pharmacy outings were off by more than 20%.
The mobility trend lines rebounded in May, when the state moved — some say too quickly — toward reopening the economy. By July, retail and restaurant outings had resurged to 27% below the pre-coronavirus baseline; grocery outings were just 4% below baseline.
With small ebbs and flows, these activity levels continued through summer and fall, before dipping sharply but briefly in late December through early February as the virus flourished, hospitals reeled and the state paid the price for a recklessly social holiday season. As of early March, travel for retail and restaurants was back to 26% below the baseline, while grocery and pharmacy trips were 11% below.
Work-related travel showed the most sustained disruption, at 33% below the baseline.
While this prolonged stasis has been trying, staying home has saved lives, said Serina Chang, a graduate student in computer science at Stanford University who co-authored a paper in the journal Nature on mobility and coronavirus spread. The research team created a model that looked at 10 U.S. metropolitan areas, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, and simulated a scenario in which residents didn’t cut travel in March and April.
“We saw sometimes 10 times the number of actual infections,” she said. “And that’s just by the beginning of May.”
Chang’s research also found that trips to tight, crowded spaces where people stay a long time cause more disease transmission than quick trips to large, nearly empty places. California leaders incorporated that thinking into new guidelines released in December and January that let more businesses stay open than in the March 2020 shutdown, but with limits on capacity.
As Californians get out of the house more, auto use is rebounding. In April 2020, California gasoline sales were down nearly 45% compared with April 2019, according to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. By November, gasoline sales were down just 16% compared with 2019, indicating residents were once again liberally filling up.
But, for now, the nature of that car travel has shifted. A couple of years ago, traffic peaked during the morning and evening commutes. Lately, car travel is distributed more evenly through the day, said Giovanni Circella, a researcher at the University of California-Davis Institute of Transportation Studies.
At the same time, daily visits to California transit stations were down an average of 51% in the first five weeks of 2021 compared with the same period in 2020. Mass transit systems in the U.S. rely heavily on fares to generate revenue. The decline in use is fueling worries that ridership won’t recover fast enough to stave off deep service cuts.
Chang and Circella said there is strong evidence that Californians with low incomes continue to face more challenges in cutting down on trips outside the home. The pandemic has underscored the array of white-collar jobs that can be done readily from home with the aid of the internet. By contrast, many lower-paid service sector jobs must be carried out in person, requiring a commute.
“Lower-income neighborhoods always ended up with a higher level of infection, and so did less-white neighborhoods,” said Chang, describing findings modeled in her study. “That tells you that mobility is encoding these disparities in some way.”
All those trends play out in high relief in the California region that has seen the biggest sustained decline in travel: the San Francisco Bay Area. The tracking data shows visits to stores and restaurants were down 62% in San Francisco during the first five weeks of 2021 compared with the baseline. Visits to workplaces were down 57%.
The Bay Area Council Economic Institute recently released a study showing that up to 45% of jobs in the region are eligible for remote work, a higher proportion than in other parts of the state. Staying in place can mean fewer infections. As of early March, San Francisco had the lowest coronavirus infection rate among California counties with more than 500,000 residents, followed by Alameda, San Mateo, Contra Costa and Santa Clara, all in the Bay Area.
In the Bay Area, as elsewhere, car traffic is starting to pick up — but not transit ridership. Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the institute, estimated that ridership on Bay Area Rapid Transit trains was down about 85% in mid-February compared with pre-pandemic levels. In contrast, he pointed to data showing vehicle crossings on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge down by just 13% on a Wednesday in mid-February.
Researchers like Circella and Bellisario are turning their attention to what comes next, when fears of coronavirus infection fade. Will commuters get used to driving and take fewer transit trips? Will Californians who can work remotely leave high-priced urban areas, transferring traffic headaches to less developed communities? The answers aren’t clear.
“The longer the disruption is [and] the bigger the magnitude of the disruption, the higher the likelihood is that we might have bigger longer-term impacts,” Circella said.
The one-year anniversary of the quasi-shutdown of the Canada-U.S. border will come and go next week, with no end in sight to disruptions that have affected lives, businesses, and communities touching the world's so-called longest undefended frontier.
Once again, the tightening will be extended on March 21 for another month as it has every month since the pandemic crashed onto this continent last year.
Once again, the people most affected will wonder what the plan is for reopening and what sorts of public-health stats would allow regular travel to resume.
The truth is: There is no plan.
Conversations with officials in both countries in recent days revealed that, even as vaccinations ramp up, neither government has defined what it will take to reopen the border.
They say there's no secret document laying out such benchmarks — such as, for example, the number of vaccine doses required for a return to normal, or the number of coronavirus cases reported.
The official line remains that it's still too soon to talk about reopening because the virus remains a serious threat. There are still too few vaccinated people; case levels are still concerning; virus variants pose unknown perils.
The border restrictions have hit some communities hard. Seen here, on the day of the initial border clampdown on March 21, 2020, are houses across a bridge spanning the border in Lubec, Maine. (John Morris/Reuters)
"I can see the light at the end of the tunnel," said one Canadian official, who asked to remain anonymous.
"In the near term, however, people should expect the border measures [to continue]."
What that means is an extension of the spotty new status quo for cross-border travel — which has dropped about 90 per cent, though freer movement is allowed for certain workers, and certain humanitarian reasons, and certain modes of transport.
U.S. lawmakers eye White House proposal
But there's a push for greater long-term clarity. In the terminology of the financial world, what some are asking for is forward guidance to help people plan.
Among those demanding details are two dozen members of the U.S. Congress from border states. They wrote to U.S. President Joe Biden requesting a plan for reopening the border, in gradual phases, tied to public-health metrics.
One leader of that initiative is Brian Higgins, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives from Buffalo, N.Y.
Brian Higgins, a member of the U.S. Congress from Buffalo, N.Y., has been demanding clarity on the border reopening policy since last year. He now says he's hoping to see a gradual reopening from May to July. (U.S. Congress via AP)
In an interview last week in his office, Higgins reflected on the ties between countries. He pointed to an acoustic guitar in his office and noted that he'd just been playing a Gordon Lightfoot tune; he reminisced about how easy it used to be, in the old days, before the border tightened with the Sept. 11 attacks, to drive across to Ontario, park his car, and go for a jog along the waterfront.
U.S. lawmaker wants border partly reopened by end of May
Higgins doesn't want these restrictions lingering much longer. His goal: to have the border partly reopened by U.S. Memorial Day, May 31, then fully reopened by July 4, under certain health-related conditions.
"I don't see any reason why loved ones who have been separated for a year; property owners; people that live in Buffalo that own a cottage in Crystal Beach, Ont.; business owners — why shouldn't they be able to cross the border safely," he said.
"So long as they certify that they're going to do certain things: certify that you've been vaccinated, certify that you're going to wear a mask, certify that you're going to practise good physical distancing."
Higgins has been talking to the Biden administration as it works on its own policy as part of an executive order signed on the president's first full day in office.
The White House policy is weeks behind schedule. However, Higgins hopes the new administration might be able to draft up some ideas soon and propose them to Canada.
Human relationships have been upended as a result of the border restrictions. Seen here is Marie Filuk of White Rock, B.C., visiting her son and grandchildren, who live in Bellingham, Wash., on Mother's Day 2020 along the Canada-U.S. border. (Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters)
Canadian officials aren't actually rejecting the notion of a phased reopening from May to July; they're just calling such reopening talk premature.
Some members of one critical Canadian industry — the auto sector — are growing impatient.
Auto sector gets angry: 'It is chaos'
They say Canada's industry risks damaging itself at a critical moment, as parts companies across the continent compete to obtain contracts during the shift to new supply chains in the updated NAFTA, and the evolution to electric vehicles.
One auto-parts company chairman, Rob Wildeboer of Martinrea International, said it's actually getting harder now to cross the border than it was early in the pandemic.
He said some executives or technicians get sent into quarantine when they enter Canada, and some don't, and that sometimes the rules are applied differently on the same day at the same border crossing.
Canadian auto-parts company Martinrea says it wants greater clarity. It says the travel rules are applied unclearly and unevenly and it's hurting Canadian companies competing against rival U.S. suppliers. Seen here, in 2017, is a Vaughan, Ont., facility of Martinrea's Alfield Industries subsidiary. (Fred Thornhill/Reuters)
"It is chaos. It is chaos, and it's uncertainty," Wildeboer said in an interview.
"Everyone in our industry is confused.… If we had a meeting of all the members of the auto industry today, like this afternoon, and we had an hour, we'd spend 55 minutes talking about the border."
He said border guards lack clear guidance from Ottawa, and it's hurting Canadian parts companies, who are competing against American rivals whose staff and executives can travel freely to meet their U.S. customers.
His industry is pleading for Ottawa to, at least in the short term, recognize auto employees as essential, so that they don't wind up in quarantine.
But Flavio Volpe of Canada's Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association said repeated attempts to get Public Safety Minister Bill Blair to talk went unanswered, as did a letter sent five months ago.
"That's very frustrating," Volpe said last Monday.
The association can meet with the prime minister, deputy prime minister, Mexican cabinet members and White House officials but can't reach Blair, he said.
"I can get a hold of the White House — but not Public Safety. … [It's] crazy."
Days later, following a request for comment from CBC News, Blair's office said the minister and his representatives had just spoken with auto-industry figures in recent days; Volpe confirmed Blair had recently reached out.
Volpe said the government has a responsibility to shed some light on its longer-term plans: "Show us the road map, just like the provinces got a road map on how they go from red to orange to yellow."
This is what some U.S. lawmakers, including Higgins, tried pushing for last year: clarity on how a phased-in reopening would work.
But the idea was rebuffed and Higgins' social-media feed was inundated with ridicule from a number of Canadians. Higgins now says he doesn't blame Canadians for that reaction.
Cross-border traffic into Canada is down 90 per cent during the pandemic. Travel is allowed for certain workers, and for certain humanitarian reasons. The restrictions are noted here on U.S. customs vehicles, at the border crossing at the Thousand Islands Bridge in Ontario last fall. (Lars Hagberg/Reuters)
At the time, the U.S. was in the midst of a devastating second wave of COVID-19 cases, and the country's COVID-19 death rate is still nearly three times higher than Canada's.
He blames the former Trump administration for not taking the virus seriously enough and for not engaging Canada earlier.
American outlook brightening fast
Now the tide is turning.
Vaccination rates are surging in the U.S. Biden has said he expects enough vaccines for every American by May 31 and hopes life might be close to normal by Independence Day, July 4.
This year has been particularly disruptive in border communities.
In Massena, N.Y., across from Cornwall, Ont., the town supervisor said the absence of Canadians has been felt in places like the nearby Malone, N.Y., ski resort.
"No Canadian traffic — it hurts a lot," Steven O'Shaughnessy said.
He said people in his community just keep hearing — month after month — about shutdown extensions, but never about the longer-term plan.
Border communities anxiously await news
Across the border, the mayor of Cornwall referred to the human impact, recounting the story of one woman across the border who struggled to be with her dying mother in Cornwall.
"Those are the things that hit home," said Bernadette Clement.
One thing people are hungry for, she said, is information.
"I think it's not clear," Clement said.
"We're at the point where we're thinking [reopening is] going to happen sometime this year, potentially. Except we don't know what the metrics are.… What's the process?"
Russia says it has reached new agreements to produce the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine in more EU countries.
Deals have been reached with companies in Spain, France, and Germany pending its approval in the EU, according to the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).
But ministers in each country have told AFP news agency they are not aware of any deals, and a spokesperson for the IDT Biologika laboratory in Germany said the company were "still at the stage of discussions".
"Currently there are additional talks ongoing to boost production in the EU," the fund's head, Kirill Dmitriev, said in a statement.
"This will allow us to start supplying Sputnik V to the European single market once the approval is granted by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)."
Last week, the Italian-Swiss pharmaceutical company Adienne in Lombardy announced the first production agreement to make the Sputnik V vaccine from July.
The RDIF, which financed the development of the vaccine, has not named the companies in France, Germany, and Spain it has reached agreements with.
Sputnik V is not yet authorised in the European Union, but the EMA has begun a rolling review based on results from laboratory studies and clinical studies in adults.
Following the announcement, the Russian authorities said they were ready to provide vaccines to 50 million Europeans from June.
In addition, Dmitriev said that Russia was also ready to "start supplying those EU countries that had authorised Sputnik V independently", such as Hungary.
"Since the start of the fight against the pandemic, the RDIF has been in favour of active coordination with all partners, including from Europe, and open to negotiations," he added.
The Sputnik V jab was initially greeted with scepticism in Europe after it was unveiled in the summer of 2020 after limited clinical tests.
But a study published in the scientific medical journal, The Lancet, has shown that the vaccine is 91.6% effective against symptomatic cases of COVID-19.
Last week, Russia questioned the neutrality of the EMA after a senior official urged EU member states not to use the Sputnik V vaccine yet.
The development of the vaccine was entrusted to state institutions and is celebrated in Moscow as a historic success for President Vladimir Putin's Russia.
