Octuple-COVID-19-vaccinated politician dies from COVID-19 at 75

On September 2 of 2020, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) of Russia, received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine - as a participant of Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V) clinical trials. 3 weeks later he got the second dose with no side effects. 

Sputnik V (Спутник V) is an adenovirus viral vector vaccine for COVID-19 developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Russia. It is the world's first registered combination vector vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19, having been registered on 11 August 2020 by the Russian Ministry of Health. Gam-COVID-Vac was initially approved for distribution in Russia and then in at least 59 other countries on the preliminary results of Phase I–II studies eventually published on 4 September 2020. Both doses of Sputnik V contain non-replicating viral vectors. The first component uses adenovirus type 26 (AD26), and the second — which a person receives 21 days later — contains adenovirus type 5 (AD5). 

Several of the presently approved vaccines against SARS-Coronavirus-2 (AstraZeneca/Oxford University, Johnson & Johnson's Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine, and Sputnik V) are based on adenovirus DNA vectors as carriers for the genetic information for the SARS-COV-2 spike glycoprotein.

Since antibody titers decline 3-month post-vaccination, In December 2020, Zhirinovsky received Sputnik Light, essentially the 3rd booster dose of the Sputnik V vaccine. The Sputnik Light vaccine is made from Ad26, which is the first part of the Sputnik V vaccine. Sputnik Light is authorized for use in Russia as a single-dose vaccine. Johnson and Johnson’s single-dose vaccine is also based on human adenovirus serotype number 26 (rAd26)

Zhirinovsky received the 4th dose in form of a nasal spray - then experimental but recently authorized for use by Russian Department of Health. 

7 months later, Zhirinovsky received the 5th and later the 6th doses of another COVID-19 vaccine - CoviVac (КовиВак) developed by the Chumakov Center. 4 months after that, in December 2021, he received his 7th and 8th doses of the same CoviVac vaccine.  


CoviVac is an inactivated virus-based COVID-19 vaccine. It was developed with a more traditional technology similar to the inactivated polio vaccine, Hepatitis A and rabies. Initially, a sample of SARS-CoV-2 strain AYDAR-1 (GISAID EPI_ISL_428851) was isolated from a nasopharyngeal swab sample of a COVID-19 patient, replcated (vero cell), deactivated and mixed with an aluminium-based adjuvant.

Sinovac, Sinopharm, and Bharat Biotech developed their COVID-19 vaccines using similar inactivated vaccines technology. 

On February 2, 2022, a little over a month after receiving his 8-th dose of Coronavirus vaccine, Zhirinovsky was hospitalized in critical condition with COVID-19. On February 9th, he was placed on ventilator in a medically induced coma. In March, he was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 complications such as sepsis and respiratory failure. 

Today, on April 6th, 2022, state Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin announced that Zhirinovsky died after "a serious and prolonged illness."


REFERENCES

Logunov DY, Dolzhikova IV, Zubkova OV, Tukhvatulin AI, Shcheblyakov DV, Dzharullaeva AS, Grousova DM, Erokhova AS, Kovyrshina AV, Botikov AG, Izhaeva FM. Safety and immunogenicity of an rAd26 and rAd5 vector-based heterologous prime-boost COVID-19 vaccine in two formulations: two open, non-randomised phase 1/2 studies from Russia. The Lancet. 2020 Sep 26;396(10255):887-97.

Logunov DY, Dolzhikova IV, Shcheblyakov DV, Tukhvatulin AI, Zubkova OV, Dzharullaeva AS, Kovyrshina AV, Lubenets NL, Grousova DM, Erokhova AS, Botikov AG. Safety and efficacy of an rAd26 and rAd5 vector-based heterologous prime-boost COVID-19 vaccine: an interim analysis of a randomised controlled phase 3 trial in Russia. The Lancet. 2021 Feb 20;397(10275):671-81.

Kozlovskaya LI, Piniaeva AN, Ignatyev GM, Gordeychuk IV, Volok VP, Rogova YV, Shishova AA, Kovpak AA, Ivin YY, Antonova LP, Mefyod KM. Long-term humoral immunogenicity, safety and protective efficacy of inactivated vaccine against COVID-19 (CoviVac) in preclinical studies. Emerging microbes & infections. 2021 Jan 1;10(1):1790-806.

Kozlovskaya L, Piniaeva A, Ignatyev G, Selivanov A, Shishova A, Kovpak A, Gordeychuk I, Ivin Y, Berestovskaya A, Prokhortchouk E, Protsenko D. Isolation and phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 variants collected in Russia during the COVID-19 outbreak. International Journal of Infectious Diseases. 2020 Oct 1;99:40-6.

Жириновский, Владимир Вольфович — Википедия (wikipedia.org)

Что стало причиной смерти Владимира Жириновского? | В России | Политика | Аргументы и Факты (aif.ru)

Умер Владимир Жириновский // НТВ.Ru (ntv.ru)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A New Onset of Ulcerative Colitis post-2nd-breakthrough-COVID-19

Image
A 21-year-old non-smoking Caucasian male with a history of acute pancreatitis but no other medical issues or family history had two doses of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.  Four months after the second dose he had his first episode of COVID-19. Although not hypoxic, he felt pretty unwell for a week, with a severe cough, fever, generalized body ache, headache, and loss of taste. He received the third dose of the vaccine two months after recovering from COVID. Nine months after the third dose, he had the second episode of COVID-19, during which he was mildly unwell for three days, recovered, and did not require any anti-viral medication or antibiotics. One week post the second episode of COVID-19, he developed diarrhea and abdominal pain. It then progressed to bloody diarrhea. Ulcerative colitis was diagnosed based on his clinical symptoms, biopsy changes, and the exclusion of other causes.  There are ten published case reports about the newly diagnosed ulcerative colitis associate
Read more

COVID in May

Image
Concerns about a potential resurgence of COVID-19 are mounting as summer 2024 approaches.  This is driven by several indicators, including social media posts, healthcare data, and wastewater surveillance across different regions. Our study findings corroborate this trend.  While many forecasters anticipate a surge, others expect a gradual increase through the end of May, and then a decline again around early June. Reports from social media suggest emerging clusters of COVID-19 in Texas, several Canadian provinces, the UK, and on cruises in northern regions such as a Norwegian cruise to Alaska.  Data from Alberta's Respiratory virus dashboard   (total weekly laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases) and wastewater surveillance in Calgary indicate an uptick in COVID-19 cases starting April 2024. The most recent statistics from Alberta Health reveal a significant increase in hospitalizations due to COVID-19, with 114 individuals currently hospitalized—an increase of more than 20% over two
Read more

Chronic SARS-CoV-2 Shedding

Image
Chronic viral shedding, a condition where the virus continues to be released from an individual's body long after the initial infection, has been observed in many infectious diseases, including COVID-19.  In such cases, individuals may remain asymptomatic or experience only mild symptoms while the virus persists. It remains detectable in repeated tests over an extended period and can still infect others even in nasal swab is negative (which happens quite often ). This was evident in our study.    Recent research by Conway et al. (2024) highlights the possibility of chronic SARS-CoV-2 infection, extending over several months and potentially years. Other studies have documented prolonged asymptomatic infections and extended viral shedding in moderate to severe beyond hospital discharge. Analysis of sequencing data on UK samples taken between 2 November 2020 and 15 August 2022 lead to estimates that 0.1–0.5% of infections may become persistent with typically rebounding high viral load
Read more