Talk:Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine

Efficacy?
Re this I think we need to be extremely wary of reporting the efficacy figures. It's an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim without available WP:MEDRS sourcing, and there is amply and growing sourcing suspecting the Lancet figures may be problematic. If mentioned at all I think we need to frame this by the doubts, though that represents a sourcing challenge. Thoughts? Alexbrn (talk) 04:41, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * This level of concern does not seem to apply equally to other competing vaccines whose data are also mostly based on primary sources. I think the previous text already had careful neutral wording ("they said it is" instead of just "it is"). In any case, would you provide these sources that arouse suspicion? I think it's worth mentioning them and writing about the controversy as well. The most interesting ones I know are this article and this article. The reported efficacy is not that different from the effectiveness seen in Argentina, though the data points are not the same. --Fernando Trebien (talk) 12:32, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Have good published sources raised such concerns about the other vaccines though? For this one we have a raft of such stuff from the more reliable end of things and e.g. concerns on PubPeer going to far as alleging outright fraud. I can appreciate the need to say something but in such a hot area we need to be really careful about stepping outside WP:MEDRS if it means we've giving a false picture. At the same time we shouldn't be too skeptical and should be aware politics might be in play. What to do? Help! Alexbrn (talk) 12:51, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Have good published sources raised such concerns about the other vaccines though? No, as far as I know. But PubPeer is not a published source, it is a forum. This article in The Lancet is better. It could be mentioned alongside the efficacy results to provide a complete picture with the proper criticism.
 * The BMJ response can also be mentioned, considering, however, that it precedes the results from Argentina by several months. --Fernando Trebien (talk) 14:49, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes the Lancet source looks suitable. I think we could probably just says what the result were, and what the concerns were/are for context, and leave it at that for now. Alexbrn (talk) 14:58, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Alexbrn (talk), I am wondering if a scientific article in Vaccines can be used in connection with a vaccine effectiveness study. I understand that it is a primary source. However, if you think the Lancet looks suitable, why not Vaccines? Here is a recent study https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/10/7/984 .Olgamatveeva (talk) 04:16, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * MDPI is not a reputable publisher. Please see your Talk page for a note about conflicts of interest too. Alexbrn (talk) 06:05, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Alexbrn (talk), Thanks for the reply, but I have a comment and a question. MDPI is a bit of a mixed bag and certainly had issues before. However, “Vaccines” is listed in PubMed, and the National Library of Medicine (NLM) has been known to get rid of junk journals. If "Vaccines" is good enough for the NLM, why isn't it good enough for Wikipedia? A year ago Vaccines published a questionable paper, but it has since been retracted. Olgamatveeva (talk) 04:21, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * PUBMED contains loads of junk. Primary sources are generally unreliable for medical content, and primzry sources from poor publishers are a step down from that. Alexbrn (talk) 04:28, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Alexbrn (talk), I completely agree that  third-party published secondary sources are the best sources of information for this and other Wikipedia articles, but we don’t have them yet. Therefore, the information in this article should be backed up by less-than-perfect sources with counterbalancing comments on the reliability of those sources. Yes, I read the Wikipedia article on MDPI. Yes, I know there was some controversy. However, references to press releases and preprints are still present in the current version of the article in the "Effectiveness" section, and it is difficult to argue that the peer-reviewed article in the journal referenced in Pubmed is a better source of information compared to them. I am pleased to note that the section also cites two peer-reviewed articles. I just think that another peer-reviewed article that analyzes more different age groups than those included in the other two studies cited in the section can not harm the section. Olgamatveeva (talk) 15:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC) Olgamatveeva (talk) 15:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If there are other bad sources they should be removed too. If there are insufficient decent sources, Wikipedia stays silent. Alexbrn (talk) 16:01, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I still don't accept your displeasedness, as long as it seems to be very clear to me: the Gamaleya's own research is the primary source, while non-Gamalean reviews on the matters are not the primary sources. Care to elaborate? 81.89.66.133 (talk) 06:50, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Alexbrn (talk), do you want me to remove the references to the press releases, or would you prefer to do it yourself? My revision plan for the “effectiveness” section is following.

I would like to remove “On 29 June 2021, the director of the Gamaleya Institute, Denis Logunov, said that Sputnik V is about 90% effective against the Delta variant.[26] On 11 August, health minister Mikhail Murashko said its effectiveness is 83%.[27] “ These statements are taken from press releases. However, I suggest keeping the text “On 25 August, a preliminary version of a case-control study indicated an unadjusted effectiveness of about 50% against symptomatic disease. The authors expected that adjusting for age and sex would increase the estimate, citing an increase from 66% to 81% when adjusting the data for effectiveness against hospitalization.[A]” Although these statements are based on a published preprint, I believe that the study will soon be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and I know that the research project PI has a very high scientific reputation. I also suggest that to leave the reference to the other preprint but remove the data table until the preprint is published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Instead of a table, I suggest writing one sentence: According to the study, the protective effectiveness of Sputnik V against COVID-19 infection was 79%, against hospitalization - 81%, against death - 88%. The sentence must follow the text: A large-scale study in Mexico assessed 793,487 vaccinated adults by various vaccines compared to 4,792,338 unvaccinated adults between 24 December 2020 and 27 September 27, 2021. The results were as follows:[32] Olgamatveeva (talk) 19:17, 20 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Alexbrn (talk), the sentence: "A vaccine is generally considered effective if the estimate is ≥50% with a >30% lower limit of the 95% confidence interval" does not belong in this section. It should be moved to the Efficiency section.Olgamatveeva (talk) 15:32, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * What "Efficiency" section? This only goes to show most people (even academics) find these terms hard. I appreciate it is hard to do, but really this should all be explained much more simply. The article could do with a drastic filleting IMO. Alexbrn (talk) 16:33, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Alexbrn
 * >I appreciate it is hard to do, but really this should all be explained much more simply
 * Well, allow me to retort. Once the subject's details are unravelled in a simpleton-friendly manner, it becomes a crowd pleaser kind of newspaper article, rather than an encyclopedia-worthy research. At this rate, you are - albeit in a non-direct fashion - asking for a piece of something non-neutral; see WP:NEWS and WP:NOT. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 06:57, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Not simpletons, no. A well-educated 15 year old is often held as a rough benchmark for target reader. Style for medical topics is set out at MOS:MED. Bon courage (talk) 07:30, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

How does the source citation 16 in any way correlate to the purported claim of typing errors currently in quotation marks in the efficacy section? The quoted text is not present. FrostedLilly (talk) 03:50, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, citation 37 FrostedLilly (talk) 03:52, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

The lead
It would be helpful if the lead included key information including how effective and safe the vaccine is, what confidence we have in the assessment and why it has not been approved by the WHO. I came to this article after reading about a case where a nurse in Toronto received this vaccine and found it was not recognized by his employers. It's not clear from the contents where this information is in the article.

While the lead says that there is "absence of robust scientific research confirming safety and efficacy," it doesn't say what the findings were in preliminary studies, whether those studies were properly carried out, or what additional information we have after extensive use of the vaccine.

TFD (talk) 15:37, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The GRIEM who has published Phase 3 Trial of Sputnik V Results didn't share openly raw data of the research. This shady practice automatically makes the vaccine questionable. Take a look what Lancet says on that:. Even Russian pharmacologists questioned this dumb move. AXO NOV  (talk) ⚑ 11:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * That would be useful to add. We don't know how effective the vaccine is. The current wording is, "Approval in early August of Gam-COVID-Vac was met with criticism in mass media and discussions in the scientific community as to whether approval was justified in the absence of robust scientific research confirming safety and efficacy." TFD (talk) 15:14, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't mind if you elaborate on that. AXO NOV  (talk) ⚑ 09:20, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hello. I would like to know what exactly "raw data" is supposed to be. Because, when it comes to data, there is such a thing as "red box". You don't want the sheer amount of data to lead to further confusion, indistinguishable to "black box". 81.89.66.133 (talk) 16:34, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * more than 1/2 of the employees of the research institute first planned to name the vaccine of the Research Institute Gamalei, 176.65.114.251 (talk) 16:10, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * GAM in "Gam-Covid-Vac" stands for GAMalea, no discrepancy here... BTW, that's offtopic. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 10:11, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Sputnik Light as vaccine booster with Pfizer
Is it really important to write about these speculations fueled by state-run Russia media? E.g.  AXO NOV  (talk) ⚑ 11:02, 22 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Which exactly speculations? Please define the subj. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 16:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)


 * > [1]
 * Ah. Well, try learning about Wikipedia policies on news next time. WP:NEWS, iirc. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 10:13, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Public opinion
OK, so this article has public opinion polls on "the Russian vaccine". Problem is, it uses the word "Russian" and does not account for the fact the COVID was a novel virus in 2019-2020; creating a out-of-place context. I don't say it should be deleted ASAP although I would, pointing at the policy of WP:NEWS, but rather, it should elaborathed in a more intricate fashion how the public was really sceptical in 2020, but got less sceptical in 2021. I do believe the archive of this very discussion page gives the impression needed to fathom the idea of initial "radical" scepticism towards the very idea of creating a "vaccine" (vaccine candidate, emergency vaccine etc.) in under a year after discovering COVID-19. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 07:24, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Poor gallery
Given how much of a furor the vaccine was back in its early days, the article sure lacks a beautiful gallery. Here are some ideas to look for: Hope my opinion on the look helps.81.89.66.133 (talk) 07:32, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Some certificates - say, some volounteer's certificate of vaccination from 2020
 * 2) A pic of food recommended to recover after getting the viral vector
 * 3) Some empty vials in a vaccination centre
 * 4) A picture of Kommunarka hospital, so the would be a pic of a cool/chilly looking shiny new building (a place where the vaccine was widely distributed because Kommunarka was used as a dedicated COVID hospital, if I remeber correctly)
 * 5) A pic of the Gamaleya's building so there would be a more relevant photo

Article title
Just came across this article, and the title seems slightly odd to me. The article doesn’t indicate that the vaccine is known by this extended name, with the lede only referring to it as Sputnik V and Gam-COVID-Vac. This originally lead me to think that the text might be for disambiguation (and should have been in parentheses); however, given that Sputnik V redirects to this article, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Because of this, I wonder if it the page should be moved to Sputnik V.

All the best, &zwj;—&zwj;a smart kitten[ meow] 14:34, 29 December 2023 (UTC)


 * It seems very common/standard on WP to name them "X COVID-19 vaccine", where X is often the inventor company(s) name; check out under Category:COVID-19 vaccines by country. eg Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. A case could be made to rename it "Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology COVID-19 vaccine", but that is such a mouthful I wouldn't support that. I think leave it as is, even if perhaps slightly odd. Rwendland (talk) 20:29, 31 December 2023 (UTC)