Sputnik V explainer: How Russia's coronavirus vaccine works

Sputnik V explainer: How Russia's coronavirus vaccine works

MOSCOW — Russia on August 11 became the first country in the world to approve a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Now the first batch of the vaccine is ready for public distribution, TASS Russian News Agency reports, citing Russia's health ministry.

Russia's coronavirus vaccine, dubbed Sputnik V in homage the world's first satellite placed in orbit by the Soviet Union, uses modified adenoviruses, viruses that cause the common cold, to trigger an immune response and prime the immune system to respond to SARS-CoV-2.