MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia is working on a program to offer people abroad the chance to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in Russia with the Sputnik V shot from July, according to the official account of Vaccine Twitter.
Authorities have so far been skeptical about launching a program to allow foreigners to travel to Russia to get the vaccine, saying it needed to focus on its own population.
The two-shot vaccine is available in Russia for its own citizens or for foreigners who have a residence or temporary residence permit.
“Vaccination against Sputnik V in Russia! Who is on board? “The official English account of the shooting wrote on Thursday on Twitter, posting a photograph of people next to a plane with Sputnik written.
He invited Twitter users to follow his account, saying, “Our social media followers will be the first to be invited to #vaccinate #Sputnik in Russia when the program begins.”
“We are working to start this program in July,” he said.
Russia’s sovereign wealth fund RDIF, which markets Sputnik V globally and runs its Twitter account, declined to delve deeper.
An RDIF representative said the fund would provide more details when this program was launched.
“Call me Laika and take me on board in this Sputnik!” one person responded to the tweets, referring to the first Russian dog in space. Some expressed doubts about the idea due to the pace of the vaccination program in Russia.
Russia had produced 20.1 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine as of March 17, while 4.3 million people out of a population of 144 million have received both shots since December.
Health Minister Mikhail Murashko earlier ruled out the idea of foreigners traveling to Russia to receive the shot while the country inoculated its own population.
“The priority for us is the vaccination of Russian citizens … At the moment we are not working on the issue of vaccination tourism,” said Alexei Kuznetsov, Murashko’s assistant.
Reports by Polina Nikolskaya; edited by Tom Balmforth and Barbara Lewis