PRAGUE (Russia) – Russia on Thursday asked Slovakia to return the Sputnik V vaccines it has received “due to multiple breaches of contract.”
The official Twitter account of the Sputnik V vaccine said that the Slovak drug regulator “in violation of the existing contract and in an act of sabotage” tested Sputnik V “in a laboratory that is not part of the official laboratory network of control of EU medicines “.
He posted a tweet at the Slovak State Institute for Drug Control “has launched a disinformation campaign against Sputnik V and plans additional provocations.”
The Slovak institute said the EU’s network of certified laboratories only tested vaccines registered in the European Union, which is not the case with Sputnik. He added that he does not know details about the Russian-Slovak contract because he was classified.
The announcement came just hours after the Slovak regulator said it had not received enough information about its producer’s Russian vaccine to be able to assess its benefits and risks. The Slovak institute said that about 80% of the requested data has not been provided.
According to a study published in the Lancet, the vaccine delivered in Slovakia is different from the Sputnik V vaccine, which is considered 91% effective and appears to prevent inoculated people from suffering from serious diseases with COVID-19.
Sputnik V has not yet been approved for use in the EU, but the body’s regulator, the European Medicines Agency, began a continuous review of the vaccine last month. The Slovak drug agency said the EU-reviewed Sputnik V vaccine is also different from the one being sent to Slovakia.
The Russian side called it “fake news.”
“All Sputnik V batches are of the same quality and undergo rigorous quality control at the Gamaleya Institute,” he said. “Regulators in 59 countries have confirmed the quality of Sputnik V.”
But Slovaks said these vaccines seem to “have only the name in common.”
Slovakia’s coalition government collapsed last month after Prime Minister Igor Matovic staged a secret deal to buy 2 million vaccines against Sputnik V despite disagreements from his coalition partners. Matovic received the first 200,000 Russian vaccines at an airport on March 1.
Matovic, who now holds the post of finance minister and deputy prime minister of the new government that was sworn in last week, was in Moscow on Thursday to discuss new vaccine administrations. The Russians said Kirill Dmitriev, executive director of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund, which finances the vaccine and markets it abroad, had held a “productive meeting” with Matovic.
But the fund demanded that Slovaks send Sputnik V to an EU-certified laboratory for testing and asked them to return the vaccines they had received so that “they could be used in other countries”.
“Congratulations, idiots,” Matovic said in a Facebook post to opponents of the Sputnik deal. He said he was not prepared to give up on it and planned to announce his steps on Friday.
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Daria Litvinova in Moscow contributed.
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