Is Russia Lying About Vaccines? The European Union arouses suspicion

The European Union believes that the Russian media, under the command of the government of Vladimir Putin, disseminated false news about European and American vaccines to sell their own serum, Sputnik-V. The head of European diplomacy, Spanish-Argentinian Josep Borrell, explained the idea on Monday. He said in a message that Russia launched the machine spreading fake news to discredit other vaccines.

Sputnik was bought in Europe only by Hungary from Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Putin’s best ally among the 27 European governments. But Hungary has not started using it and since Sunday is turning to Pfizer / BioNTech like the rest of the EU members.

Borrell writes: “Western vaccines are openly ridiculed in the multilingual Russian state-controlled media, which in some cases has gone so far as to say such absurd things that these vaccines can turn people into apes.

The Chancellor continues: “These accounts apparently target countries to which Russia wants to sell its own vaccine, Sputnik V.”

Borrell warns that this fake news is a threat to public health because they can increase mistrust of vaccines. Moscow did not respond to the impressions of the European Chancellor, but the Kremlin has previously accused Europeans of the same, of launching disinformation campaigns so that third countries are wary of your vaccine.

During the past European summer, several governments, including the British, accused Moscow of having launched its hackers to attack the computer systems of European pharmaceutical companies in order to obtain their trade secrets. Russia has always denied these allegations.

The Putin government has already sent the first shipments of vaccines to Argentina and will do so in the coming days with other countries in the region and Asia. Moscow, according to various reports in recent days, is loading its vaccine less than $ 20 for two doses, the ones that each person needs. Europe, for example, pays $ 18 per dose for the modern American vaccine, while the UK pays $ 37 per dose.

The one from Pfizer / BioNTech, the first to be used in Europe, costs the same as that of Modern. The cheapest for Europe are those of AstraZeneca, who developed them with the University of Oxford. They pay a little over US $ 6 per dose.

In addition to Argentina and Hungary, Brazil and Venezuela have also agreed to buy Sputnik-V. Other countries are acquiring the Russian vaccine or the rights to produce it, not in the form of contracts between the government and the government, but through private pharmaceutical companies. In this situation are South Korea, Egypt, India, Mexico, Nepal and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Some countries have backed off. After announcing it would buy the Russian vaccine, Turkey ruled it out. He considers that its development has not been done according to “good practices”. According to the Turkish Ministry of Health, “Russia is not able to comply with them (these good practices), so it was not possible for WHO to buy it. We cannot approve it ”.

Sputnik-V was only cleared by the Russian authorities, who gave their approval even before the tests were completed. Turkey has finally decided to buy 50 million doses from Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech.

Brussels, special