Photographer: Andrey Rudakov / Bloomberg
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov / Bloomberg
Argentina approved the emergency use of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine to combat the spread of Covid-19, making it the first nation in the former Soviet Union to authorize firing.
Wednesday’s government decision came as Aerolineas Argentinas the plane is waiting for a load of vaccines to be loaded in Moscow before returning to Buenos Aires.
President Alberto Fernández said earlier this month that he hoped to vaccinate 300,000 Argentines before the end of the year and 10 million citizens during the first two months of 2021 with the so-called Sputnik V. Fernández, of The 61-year-old said he would take the vaccine himself, although the final results of trials with adults over 60 have not yet been published.
“It is very important that Argentina start vaccinating as soon as possible,” Carla Vizzotti, the country’s health access secretary, said in a radio interview on Wednesday. The vaccine “is a key tool to minimize impact.”
With a population of 45 million people, Argentina ranks 11th in the world in cases with 1.6 million infections and more than 42,000 have died from the virus. After weeks of declining cases, Argentina’s Covid curve has begun to rise again amid more international travel and vacation meetings.
Read more: Putin’s caution over Russia’s vaccine raises eyebrows in Argentina
Until Wednesday, only Russia and Belarus had approved the use of the Sputnik vaccine. They will be produced by Russia’s partners in India, China, South Korea and other countries, according to a statement sent by email from Russia’s Direct Investment Fund, which supports the vaccine. Anmat’s decision to approve the vaccine based on Russian clinical trials is “a high recognition of Russian regulatory standards,” said Kirill Dmitriev, head of RDIF.
Health Minister Gines González Garcia recently criticized Pfizer Inc., which launched the first vaccine to use it, for seeking what it called “unacceptable conditions” in the negotiations. However, the Argentine pharmaceutical regulator Anmat approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Tuesday, although no formal agreement has been announced.
– With the assistance of Stepan Kravchenko