[ad_1]
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered officials to begin vaccinating doctors and teachers against Covid-19 starting next week, as the country battles an increase in infections that has affected hospitals in several regions.
The vaccine to be administered on a voluntary basis is Sputnik V, developed by the state Gamaleya Institute of Russia. The two-shot adenovirus injection became the world’s first registered vaccine against Covid-19 after phase 2 trials in August.
“Let’s agree on this: next week you will not inform me, but mass vaccination will begin,” Putin told Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova at a televised meeting on Wednesday. “Let’s get to work”.
Putin said Russia had already produced 2 million doses of the vaccine. “This gives us the possibility to start vaccination on a large scale, if not massively,” he said.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, told reporters on Wednesday that Russian citizens would have “top priority” in receiving the vaccine before Moscow starts selling it abroad next year. “Domestic production within Russia, which has already started, will meet the needs of the Russians,” Mr. Peskov said, citing Interfax.
Putin has delegated the introduction of restrictions on public gatherings, bars and restaurants, and travel to local officials © Alexey Nikolsky / SPUTNIK / AFP via Getty
Scientists at the Gamaleya Institute claimed last week that interim data from phase 3 trials showed Sputnik V to be more than 95 percent effective, in line with vaccines made in the West by companies like Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. However, some experts have criticized Russia’s rush to approve the vaccine and the small sample size in its trial.
Mikhail Murashko, the Minister of Health, said on Wednesday that Russia had already vaccinated 100,000 people. “The data we have collected indicates that the vaccine produces a strong immune response of antibodies and cells,” he said during a presentation to the UN. “Sputnik V is being supplied to all regions of Russia to start mass vaccination as soon as possible.”
Russia has already approved a second vaccine made by Vektor, a former biological weapons research laboratory in Siberia. A third vaccine is expected to receive government approval in December. Moscow has closed deals to manufacture 500 million courses of the vaccine outside of Russia next year and has applied for approval in 40 countries.
Russia, which has recorded the fourth highest number of infections in the world since the pandemic struck, has detected more than 25,000 cases a day in the past week, or more than double the average at the height of the first wave in the spring. However, the number of new infections has dropped since it peaked on November 27.
Latest news on coronavirus
Follow FT’s live coverage and analysis of the global pandemic and rapidly evolving economic crisis here.
A record 589 people died from Covid-19 on Wednesday, according to official figures. The excess deaths since the pandemic began is 120,000 more than the five-year average for the same period, even though official statistics have only recorded 41,053 deaths from Covid-19. Peskov said Wednesday that there are “various methods of counting and determining the cause of death, so the figures may be different.”
Hospital capacity exceeds 95 percent in 17 of Russia’s 85 provinces, according to the Russian Ministry of Health, where doctors and patients have publicly complained about long wait times for access and a lack of crucial medicines.
Yet despite the increase, Putin has delegated the introduction of restrictions on public gatherings, bars and restaurants, and travel to local officials that have largely prevented the unpopular spring closures. Last week, on a rare trip away from the residences where most of the pandemic passed, neither Putin nor his entourage were wearing masks.
In St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city and one of the hardest hit according to the Health Ministry, officials ordered the closure of bars, restaurants, museums, concert halls and theaters for much of the New Year’s holiday period. in Russia.
