Russia to supply Latin America with 100 million 'Sputnik V' doses

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has announced that it will supply up to 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, to Latin American countries. Following the discovery of the Russian vaccine last August, the Gamaleya Epidemiology and Microbiology Centre has not stopped working, now with a view to exporting its vaccine. 

“Yesterday we agreed to supply 32 million doses of the vaccine to Mexico. Tomorrow, we will announce the supply of up to 100 million doses to other countries in Latin America," said Kiril Dmítriev, RDIF's CEO, during a telematics conference with Latin American foreign ministers. 

Dmítriev stressed that Russia has already reached a supply agreement with the Brazilian state of Paraná and that today a similar agreement will be announced for other countries in Latin America. "They will buy 50 million doses from us," Dmitriyev said. 

Russia has agreed with Brazil on joint production of the vaccine and is prepared to enter into similar agreements with other Latin American countries. The senior Russian official stressed to the foreign ministers participating in the conference that "Latin America is a priority for the RDIF". 

The proposal they have put on the table is to produce nearly 200 million doses abroad before the end of the year, and over 500 million in 2021. "The most complex issue now is to produce enough vaccines to meet demand. We are ready to sign agreements, but it is important to do so responsibly based on production capacities," the fund's leader said. 

Kiril Dmitriev, also announced that the first clinical tests with volunteers will be conducted in Brazil, Mexico, the Middle East and India. "We expect that by October, we will have the results based on 25,000-30,000 people who have been vaccinated and 42 days after we will be ready to share that information with you."

The process of registering the 40,000 volunteers needed to definitively prove the effectiveness of the vaccine has already started and will be completed in the coming days. The results of the third phase of the clinical tests will be known in October and November. 

The scientific journal "The Lancet" published a medical article with the results of the first two phases of the clinical trials of the Russian vaccine, which showed that all the volunteers acquired "stable immunity" to COVID-19.