Russia’s health minister announced on Saturday that more than 800,000 citizens have received the country’s coronavirus vaccine, with more than 1.5 million doses distributed.
Reuters reported that the TASS news agency quoted Mikhail Murashko as saying that from January 1, people who received the Sputnik V vaccine will receive an electronic verification certificate, keeping the health ministry a database of all vaccinated.
Russia has the fourth largest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, with nearly 3.2 million people infected and more than 57,000 dead from the virus, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
However, Russian officials said Monday that the country the death toll is three times higher than initially reported, which means that the actual number of deaths from COVID-19 could be more than 186,000 people.
According to Reuters, the two doses of Sputnik V use different components and must be administered with a separation of 21 days.
The developers found that the Russian vaccine, which began implementation in early December, had an 91% efficacy rate in preventing COVID-19 after two doses.
However, the inoculation has received skepticism from some health experts, as the Kremlin announced the registration of the vaccine before all clinical trials were completed.
Despite this, the Russian vaccine has already been distributed to other countries.
On Tuesday, Argentina and Belarus began their launches of the Sputnik V vaccine, with the forecast of vaccinating about 300,000 Argentines. The Latin American country expects to receive 20 million doses in the next two months.
Venezuela also signed a contract this week to acquire enough doses of the Sputnik V vaccine to inoculate 10 million people, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said, according to Reuters. The country began administering doses in October as part of a clinical trial.
Russian state media reported last week that the president Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin The biggest example of mischief in the media in 2020 is … Russia increases pressure on critic Navalny with new investigation Russia accuses monk of inciting suicide by sermons denying COVID-19 MORE era planned to receive the vaccine, despite previously suggesting that there was no reason for him to be vaccinated.
Putin said earlier that one of his daughters took part in a clinical trial of the Sputnik V vaccine in August.