COVID-19: India clears Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine

Russia coronavirus vaccine

Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine

Sputnik V vaccine
Sputnik V vaccine: India clears Russia’s vaccine, says ready for use

India’s drug regulator has confirmed the approval of a third coronavirus vaccine – Russia’s Sputnik V – as the country battles a deadly wave of the pandemic that saw it logged over 161,000 new infections on Tuesday.

Russia’s sovereign wealth fund RDIF said the drug controller general of India had approved the use of Sputnik V.

“India is the most populated country to register the Russian vaccine. The total population of 60 countries where it is approved for use is three billion people or about 40 percent of the global population,” the statement said.

On Monday, sources had said an expert panel set by the drugs regulator had recommended granting emergency use approval to the vaccine developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute.

Sputnik V will be manufactured by five pharmaceutical companies in the country and 850 million doses were going to be produced annually, RDIF said.

Related News

Limited doses were going to be made available by the end of April, RDIF chief executive Kirill Dmitriev told broadcaster NDTV.

So far, India has used two vaccines, one developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and the other by the domestic firm, Bharat Biotech, for its mass immunisation programme.

India has administered over 108 million doses to its population of 1.3 billion people.

Sputnik V has the highest efficacy – 91.6 percent among the vaccines cleared in India.

dpa/NAN

Load more