Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman on Friday said that "dirty methods" were being used to discredit the Russian Sputnik V vaccine to block its access to other countries' markets.
"The competition is, first, being politicised, secondly, dirty methods are being used to discredit our vaccine," Dmitry Peskov said at his daily call with Russian journalists.
"Sometimes, certain countries and their pharmaceutical corporate giants don't use very polite methods, to block the vaccine's access to different countries," he told journalists.
Putin ordered a "large-scale" vaccination against COVID-19 to begin in Russia with the domestically developed Sputnik V vaccine that is still undergoing advanced studies needed to ensure its safety and effectiveness.
Russia boasted that Sputnik V was the world's "first registered COVID-19 vaccine" after the government gave it regulatory approval in early August.
The move drew criticism from international experts, who pointed out that the vaccine had only been tested on several dozen people at the time.
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Putin has shrugged off doubts about it, saying in August that one of his daughters was among the early vaccine recipients.
Over the past months, Sputnik V has been offered to medical workers and teachers, even as it was still in the middle of advanced trials.
Several top officials said they also have received the jabs, and earlier this week the Russian military began vaccinating crews of navy ships scheduled to depart on a mission.
The free vaccine is offered to people aged 18 to 60 who don't suffer from chronic illnesses and are not pregnant or breastfeeding.
The two-shot Sputnik V was developed by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute.
An advanced study among 40,000 volunteers was announced two weeks after the vaccine received government approval and that is still ongoing.
Last month, developers of the vaccine said interim analysis of trial data showed it was 91.4% effective.
The conclusion was based on 39 infections among 18,794 study participants that received both doses of either the vaccine or a placebo, which is a much lower number of infections than Western drugmakers have looked at when assessing the effectiveness of their vaccines.
Two other Russia-designed vaccines are also undergoing tests.
AP
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