MOSCOW: Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19 is around 83 per cent effective against the Delta variant of coronavirus, lower than previously thought, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko quoted as saying on Wednesday.

The vaccine’s developers in June said Sputnik V was around 90 per cent effective against the Delta variant.

“The latest results show that effectiveness is around 83 per cent,” the TASS news agency cited Murashko as saying.

Moreover, Russia has confirmed 21,571 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 6,512,859, the official monitoring and response center said Wednesday.

During this period, the nationwide death toll grew by 799 to 167,241, while the number of recoveries increased by 20,067 to 5,808,777.

Meanwhile, Moscow, Russia’s worst-hit region, reported 2,076 new cases, taking the city’s total to 1,533,065. More than 170 million Covid-19 tests have been conducted across the country so far.—Xinhua