MOSCOW (AP) – President Vladimir Putin on Monday called on his Argentine counterpart, who tested positive for COVID-19 despite receiving a Russian vaccine.
The Kremlin said in a reading of the call that Argentine President Alberto Fernandez told Putin that he had only minor symptoms thanks to the Sputnik V vaccine. Fernandez thanked Russia for helping fight the coronavirus and expressed interest in securing additional supplies of the Russian vaccine, according to the Kremlin statement.
Putin congratulated Fernandez, who turned 62 on Friday, on his birthday and wished him a speedy recovery.
In a tweet on Saturday, Fernandez said he had a headache and a fever of 37.3 degrees Celsius (99.1 Fahrenheit). He said he otherwise has mild symptoms, that he isolates and that he is “physically well.”
The Argentine president received a dose of Sputnik V on January 21 and a second dose a few days later.
The Russian Gamaleya Institute, which produced the vaccine, tweeted that it wished the president a speedy recovery and said the vaccine has an effectiveness rate of 91.6% against infection and 100% against critical cases.
More than 650,000 people in Argentina have received the two scheduled vaccine shots and only about 1,000 of those infected have been found more than 14 days after the final dose, according to national health statistics.
None of the vaccines used against the new coronavirus completely eliminate infections, although they have been shown to drastically reduce the rate of infection and its severity.
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