Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19 is more than 90 per cent effective, a representative of the health ministry said on Monday.
The representative cited data collated from vaccinations of the public rather than from an ongoing trial.
The comments followed a statement earlier the same day by vaccine developers Pfizer Inc and BioNTech, who said their experimental Covid-19 vaccine was more than 90 per cent effective.
"We are responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of the Sputnik V vaccine among citizens who have received it as part of the mass vaccination programme," Oksana Drapkina, director of a research institute under the health ministry, said in a statement.
"Based on our observations, its effectiveness is also more than 90%. The appearance of another effective vaccine - this is good news for everyone," Drapkina said.
I am sure that its effectiveness level will also be high
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Russia is rolling out the vaccine for domestic use despite the fact that late-stage trials have not yet finished.
Earlier on Monday, Alexander Gintsburg, director of Moscow's Gamaleya Institute which developed the Russian vaccine candidate, said he welcomed the Pfizer news.
"In the near future we expect to publish interim results of the post-registration trial of the vaccine Sputnik V, the so-called Phase III trials. I am sure that its effectiveness level will also be high," he said.
Russia is gearing up to publish preliminary results of an ongoing large-scale human trial, known as Phase III, this month. It is testing the vaccine on 40,000 people in Moscow.
Record cases
The country reported a record high of 21,798 new coronavirus infections on Monday as the authorities called for stricter measures to contain the virus in certain regions.
"It is necessary to strengthen restrictions and control over their implementation in the regions where the daily case load and the infection is spreading at rates significantly higher than the average Russian levels," Anna Popova, head of Russia's consumer health watchdog, told Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin at a televised meeting with government officials.
President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia does not plan to impose blanket restrictions or a national lockdown to curb the surge in coronavirus cases after having done so earlier in the pandemic. He said Russia would instead impose targeted measures if needed.
Authorities also reported 256 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 30,793.
With 1,796,132 infections since the start of the pandemic, Russia has the world's fourth-largest number of cases after the United States, India and Brazil.
