PRAGUE (AP) – Russia asked Slovakia on Thursday to return its Sputnik V vaccines it received “due to multiple contract violations.”
The official Sputnik V vaccine Twitter account said the Slovak drug regulator “in violation of the existing contract and in an act of sabotage” tested Sputnik V “in a laboratory that is not part of the official EU drug control network.”
It tweeted the Slovak State Institute for Drug Control “has launched a disinformation campaign against Sputnik V and plans additional provocations”.
The Slovak institute said the network of EU-certified laboratories only tests vaccines registered in the European Union, which is not the case for Sputnik. It added that it does not know details of the Russian-Slovak contract because it was classified.
The announcement was published just hours after the Slovak regulator said it had not received enough information about the Russian vaccine from the producer to assess its benefits and risks. The Slovak Institute said that about 80% of the requested data has not been provided.
It said the vaccine delivered to Slovakia is different from the Sputnik V vaccine which is considered to be 91% effective and appears to prevent inoculated individuals from becoming seriously ill with COVID-19, according to a study published in The Lancet.
Sputnik V is not yet approved for use in the EU, but its regulator, the European Medicines Agency, started an ongoing review of the vaccine last month. The Slovak Medicines Agency said that the vaccine against Sputnik V under review by the EU is also different from the one sent to Slovakia.
The Russian side called it “fake news”.
“All Sputnik V batches are of the same quality and undergo rigorous quality control at Gamaleya Institute,” he said. “The quality of Sputnik V has been confirmed by regulators in 59 countries.”
But the Slovaks said those vaccines “only seem to have the name in common”.
The Slovak coalition government collapsed last month after Prime Minister Igor Matovic struck a secret deal to buy 2 million Sputnik V vaccines, despite disagreements from his coalition partners. Matovic welcomed the first 200,000 Russian vaccines at an airport on March 1.
Matovic, who is now finance minister and deputy prime minister in the new government sworn in last week, was in Moscow on Thursday to discuss further vaccine deliveries. The Russians said Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund that funded the vaccine and marketed it abroad, had “a productive meeting” with Matovic.
But the fund demanded that the Slovaks send the Sputnik V for testing to an EU-certified laboratory and asked them to return the vaccines they had received so that they can “be used in other countries”.
“Congratulations, you idiots,” Matovic said in a Facebook post to opponents of the Sputnik deal. He said he was not ready to give up and planned to announce his further steps on Friday.
Daria Litvinova in Moscow contributed.
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