Europe questions Russian vaccine Sputnik V

Brussels regards the Russian vaccine Sputnik V as a political tool in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The President of the European Commission, Úrsula Von der Leyen, took advantage of an appearance on Wednesday afternoon to sow doubt on Sputnik V: “We always wonder – said the German – why Russia theoretically offers millions and millions of doses when it is not making sufficient progress in immunizing its own population. I think this is a question that deserves an answer “.

Von der Leyen’s sentence can imply two things: that Russia promises millions of doses that it is not really able to produce at a sufficient speed. Or worse, for Russia to provide other countries with a vaccine that it is reluctant to use on its own citizens.

Moscow has not yet requested authorization to the European Medicines Agency – responsible for giving the green light to any medicine entering the European market – to sell its vaccine in Europe, but the Hungarian government used a complicated argument – extreme urgency – to buy and start administer the Russian vaccine.

The Slovenian government is also said to be in negotiations. Von der Leyen recalled that Russian producers “must send all their data to the European Medicines Agency and then go through the control process to know the safety and efficacy of their product, like any other vaccine”.

In addition, the president of the executive arm of the European Union recalled that since neither Russia nor China manufacture their vaccines in Europe, the authorization process it’s longer and more complicated. European experts are expected to regularly inspect and visit factories and laboratories that produce this vaccine if it were to be sold in Europe. Russia has already started licensing its vaccine to be made in other countries, to start in drug factories in Brazil, China, South Korea, India and Iran. Most of this production is carried out in India without its national regulators having yet approved the Russian vaccine.

Europeans think they won’t need Russian vaccine. After the authorizations of Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, Brussels now expects that in three or four weeks at most the European Medicines Agency will approve the use of the vaccine from the Belgian laboratory Janssen, which will be produced by the multinational American Johnson & Johnson. This vaccine is set to be a game-changer in Europe because it has obvious advantages, such as being able to be stored for months in a simple freezer or that it only needs a single dose.

No covid passport

Accelerating the vaccination rate in Europe remains the number one priority of the European executive, which for the moment excludes the launch of a ‘covid passport’, as requested by the governments of the southern bloc to revive tourism in the next boreal summer.

The last European summit refused to immediately start working on this idea, which had been put on the table by the Greek government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and defended by the President of the European Commission. The French government said no. German said no. Others have been added, such as Belgian and Dutch.

Governments in southern Europe have spent months looking for a way to reactivate their tourism sectors, first with “ safe corridors ” (when it was thought that a region with little impact would continue like this throughout. pandemic), then with the “ coronavirus’ ‘passports’ that people already vaccinated would receive to allow them to travel.

Those in the north see these ‘coronavirus passports’ skeptical and as a potential form of discrimination between people already vaccinated and those who have not yet been vaccinated. And even those who, for medical reasons such as allergies, can never be.

The European executive would see the creation of an approved vaccination certificate, but that would not give any extraordinary rights and it would never be a kind of safe-conduct to travel without restrictions such as pre-testing or quarantines.

Brussels also clings to the opinion of the European Agency for Disease Prevention and Control, which declared at the beginning of the week against the use of vaccination certificates as a safe-conduct for travel or to avoid have to comply with the public health measures in force. The Agency’s explanation is that “at the moment we have no evidence that a person vaccinated cannot become infected and transmit disease“. Without having to suffer or have symptoms.

PB