Russians Can Use Sputnik-5 Vaccine Produced Abroad but Don’t Need to Do So, Officials Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 22 – Because of the limited capacity of its pharmaceutical industry, the Russian government organized the production of the Sputnik-5 vaccine in various countries abroad both to meet domestic demand and for sales abroad. But now officials say, there is enough domestic capacity that Russians need not use Sputnik-5 medicine produced abroad.

            But at the same time, these officials suggest that there is no reason for them to avoid such imports, an indication that the domestic production situation may not be as robust as Moscow has claimed, especially if it seeks to vaccinate the more than 90 percent of the population that has not yet received its shots (regnum.ru/news/3250340.html).

            One group of the population that has not yet received vaccinations are legal immigrant workers. There are a minimum of several million of them, and Muslim leaders are now pressing for them to seek vaccination and for the government to support giving them the shots (nazaccent.ru/content/35600-muftij-rossii-prizval-legalnyh-migrantov-vakcinirovatsya.html).

            Today, Russian officials reported registering 8996 new cases of infection and 397 new deaths from the coronavirus over the last 24 hours, continuing plateau levels of the last several weeks even though the pandemic continues to ebb and flow in various parts of Russia (t.me/COVID2019_official/2816 and regnum.ru/news/society/3250801.html).

            The World Health Organization said that Russia would be making “good progress” if it could lower the number of infections each day to below 5,000. It also said it  would complete the approval process on Sputnik-5 in June (regnum.ru/news/3250503.html and reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-ema-inspect-sputnik-v-manufacturing-may-who-2021-04-22/).

            Business analysts say that the Russian authorities will need to reduce or even eliminate many required inspections if the economy is to recover quickly from the pandemic-induced economic recession (ng.ru/kartblansh/2021-04-22/3_8136_kartblansh.html).

            And according to a new VTsIOM poll, doctors say many Russian women have been delaying or even cancelling needed examinations by giving the risk of infection as a reason for doing so (wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/zabota-o-zhenskom-zdorove-v-period-pandemii).