Russia's Sputnik Light Shows 78.6% Effectiveness In Buenos Aires Elderly Residents - Study

Umer Jamshaid Published September 13, 2021 | 01:34 PM

Russia's Sputnik Light single-component vaccine against the coronavirus demonstrated 78.6% effectiveness for preventing laboratory-confirmed infections among elderly residents of Argentina's Buenos Aires province

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th September, 2021) Russia's Sputnik Light single-component vaccine against the coronavirus demonstrated 78.6% effectiveness for preventing laboratory-confirmed infections among elderly residents of Argentina's Buenos Aires province, also showing 87.6% effectiveness for reducing hospitalizations and 84.8% effectiveness for preventing deaths, according to a study released in the EClinicalMedicine, published by The Lancet.

Authors of the retrospective cohort study analyzed over 40,000 individuals aged 60-79 who were inoculated with Sputnik Light and self-registered in Buenos Aires' online vaccination system in the period between December 29, 2020 and March 21, 2021. They compared infection, hospitalization and death rates of those vaccinated and unvaccinated.

"During the study period 415995 registered subjects received the first component of Gam-COVID-Vac; 40387 belonged to the 60-79 age group, and were compared to 38978 unvaccinated.

Vaccine effectiveness for preventing laboratory-confirmed infections was 78.6% ... and for reducing hospitalizations and deaths was, respectively, 87.6% ... and 84.8% ... Effectiveness was high across all subgroups," the study read.

According to the authors (representing the provincial health ministry in particular), this is the first published study of Sputnik Light effectiveness "in real life settings." Exactly this age group was considered, as "they were prioritized for vaccination in the guidelines proposed by the Argentine National Ministry of Health due to the increased risk of severe forms and mortality," the study read. Those aged over 80 were not included in the study as over 95% of them were inoculated by May 1, "leaving an insufficient number of unvaccinated subjects to compare with."