Coronavirus: Russia confirms it already has Sputnik Light vaccine ready

MOSCOW (AFP) .- Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko announced today during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin that the country has already completed clinical trials of the Sputnik Light coronavirus vaccine, candidate who only requires dose, and stated that they had prepared all the documents for your case.

The same day as The president announced to the world that tomorrow he would receive the dose of the Sputnik vaccine, the first announced as effective across the world, his government goes one step further and makes this announcement, in the midst of the controversy unleashed in the world in the face of the shortage of doses to face the pandemic crisis and also in the face of doubts about the effectiveness of the drug developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

It is on January 11 that since Kremlin They authorized clinical testing of this version of the vaccine and in February began inoculating volunteers as part of the study, according to what was published by the RT portal. Now, according to the developers, the drug is awaiting approval from authorities in several countries.

Sputnik Light is, according to Russia, a simplified version of the Sputnik V vaccine that offers a shorter period of protection than the original version. But authorities are calling for its implementation because they understand that, given just the injection required, it could drastically reduce the number of serious fatal cases and ease the health systems of the hardest hit countries.

Today, Putin announced that he would be vaccinated against the coronavirus tomorrow although he did not specify which of the Russian vaccines he would do so.

As Russia broke the news, at the national level, the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, confirmed that this afternoon 500,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine will arrive in the country to continue the vaccination campaign against the coronavirus.

“Today we have good news and it is that half a million doses of vaccine are arriving at six in the afternoon”, he said, referring to the new expedition from the Gamaleya Institute to Moscow.

According to official sources, the new batch of vaccines is composed of 300,000 doses of component 1 and 200,000 doses of component 2 and, with this shipment, Argentina will have 4,880,540 doses, the news agency published Telam.

“The situation (for the supply of vaccines) is like in the rest of the world, and this is what the president (Alberto Fernández) communicated, who showed the citizens how it works,” Cafiero said, referring to the official channel made by the president last week.

He also noted that “There are rich countries that suffer in the same way” and added that “only 18 countries have achieved 10% compliance with their contracts.”

THE NATION