A medical worker is holding a syringe containing the Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V) Covid-19 vaccine.
Alexander Reka | TASS | Getty Images
According to Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Europe should be open to absorbing and using Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine amid what he described as a “Pfizer monopoly” across the region.
Dmitriev from RDIF, which supported the development of the Russian coronavirus vaccine, told CNBC the vaccine could be useful for Europe, where vaccination programs for Covid have been slow to progress.
“It is very important that Europe is open to different vaccines because it is not good to have a Pfizer monopoly in Europe,” Dmitriev told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” on Monday.
“It is good to have AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and other vaccines so that prices are reasonable and Europe is not subject to a vaccine monopoly that is currently being created.”
Coronavirus vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, and the vaccine from Pfizer and the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech are currently the most commonly used injections in Europe. However, the former has been subject to studies by the European Medicines Agency due to concerns that it could be related to a small number of rare but serious blood clotting incidents in post-vaccinated people.
Similar concerns impacted the inclusion of Johnson & Johnson (which will soon be rolled out in the EU), but after investigation, the EMA has ruled that the benefits of both shots outweigh the risks.
There are now anecdotal reports of Europeans refusing the AstraZeneca recording, which is cheaper to produce and buy, asking for the Pfizer-BioNTech recording instead. CNBC has reached out to Pfizer to respond to Dmitriev’s comments.
Meanwhile, a dispute has arisen in the EU over the possible use of the Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V, which was initially the subject of doubts about its clinical data and safety standards and more recently seen by Russia as a geopolitical tool, it has vaccine to various countries around the world, mainly to its allies.
Interim analysis of phase 3 clinical trials of the shot, which involved 20,000 participants and published in early February in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet, found it to be 91.6% effective against symptomatic Covid-19 infection. The EMA is currently evaluating the clinical data pending a possible approval of the shot, which would pave the way for the use of the vaccine in the EU.
Several countries in Eastern Europe have expressed interest in, or have already purchased and deployed doses of the vaccine, including Hungary, despite the fact that it has not yet been approved by the EMA.
Such purchases were not without controversy: for example, the Slovak drug agency claimed earlier in April that the doses of Sputnik V it received were not the same as those assessed by international experts. Russia responded by demanding that Slovakia return hundreds of thousands of doses, citing contract violations, Reuters reported.
The RDIF CEO said negotiations on vaccine deliveries had taken place with Germany “and several other countries,” although he did not mention them. However, France is also known to have held talks with Russia about possible purchases of the vaccine.
Dmitriev said he hoped the EMA would have completed the evaluation of the shot by June. “We are very clear that we can deliver 50 million doses of the vaccine … to Europe from June to September.”