MUSCAT, June 24 (Sputnik) - Oman granted emergency use authorization to Russia’s Sputnik V and China’s Sinovac vaccines, bringing the number of approved COVID-19 shots up to four, the disease surveillance chief said Thursday.

"Emergency use license has… been granted in the Sultanate for four vaccines, namely Pfizer-BioNTech, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Sputnik and Sinovac vaccines," Saif Salim Al Abri was quoted as saying by the Times of Oman.

The Russian Health Ministry registered Sputnik V, the world's first vaccine against the coronavirus developed by the Gamaleya research institute, in August 2020. The vaccine's effectiveness after the third phase of the clinical trials was proved to be 91.6 percent, as published in The Lancet medical journal. Sputnik V has so far been authorized for use in at least 67 countries.

According to the latest analysis of data on the post-vaccination infection percentage among 3.8 million vaccinated Russians, the vaccine shows 97.6% efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 cases.