The US Commerce Department blacklisted a Russian research institute that helped create the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine.
by Ben Norton
Part 2 - State-led Covid-19 vaccine research in Russia, China, Cuba beat US ‘public-private partnership’
The Russian government announced this August that it had registered the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine, called Sputnik V.
Sputnik V was developed by the Russian Health Ministry’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. This scientific facility created the vaccine in a joint research project with the Russian Defense Ministry’s 48th Central Research Institute.
On August 27, the US Commerce Department imposed sanctions on Russia’s 48th Central Research Institute, blacklisting the scientific body.
While Russia took a state-led approach to create a coronavirus vaccine, the Trump administration announced a “public-private partnership” in May. The program, called “Operation Warp Speed,” saw the US government dole out billions of tax dollars to Big Pharma companies.
The Trump administration awarded massive contracts to private corporations like Novavax, Pfizer, and Moderna, while Trump reportedly offered “large sums of money” for exclusive rights to a vaccine being developed by a German firm so it could be sold for profit.
But the US public-private partnership was unable to develop a vaccine before foreign countries with government-led research efforts did. Besides Russia, a state-owned Chinese company says its vaccine will be ready by the end of 2020, while Cuba is doing clinical trials for a vaccine of its own.
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