A health worker prepares a dose of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine at a hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Photographer: Anita Pouchard Serra / Bloomberg
Photographer: Anita Pouchard Serra / Bloomberg
Chancellor Angela Merkel said she is willing to consider using Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine in Germany as she tries to allay concerns about her country’s sputtering Covid-19 vaccination program.
In a rare television appearance on Tuesday, Merkel said the Russian shot could be used to protect people in the European Union, as long as it is approved by the European Medicines Agency.
“I spoke to the Russian president about this,” she said.
It was the first time she had been interviewed on prime time since June, when Germany approved measures to offset the economic impact of the pandemic. She spoke shortly after the medical journal The Lancet published an interim analysis of an advanced clinical trial that found Sputnik V provided strong protection against Covid-19.
“We have received good data from the Russian vaccine today,” Merkel said in an interview with public broadcaster ARD. “Any vaccine is welcome in the EU, but only after it has been approved by EMA.”
The Chancellor and her government have come under fire after urging Germany to hand over responsibility for negotiating vaccine contracts to the European Commission. Next Delivery delays are responsible for slowing shot distribution, with Germany – and its European partners – lagging behind countries like the US and Great Britain.
Read more: Merkel’s handprints can be seen all over Germany from vaccination problems
Merkel also reiterated her promise that all Germans will receive a first injection of the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of September, as long as the drug manufacturers adhere to their delivery commitments.
Even if new shots are not approved, there will be ample supplies despite previous delays, she said Monday after crisis talks with pharmaceutical executives, cabinet ministers, the country’s 16 national prime ministers and officials from the EU commission.
Germany vaccinated about 3 in 100 people, compared to 10 in the US and nearly 15 in the UK, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. While Britain and America began immunizing a few weeks earlier thanks to faster approval, Germany’s rollout was hampered by supply issues.
Read more: Merkel makes summer vaccine promise with ‘tough weeks’ ahead
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on Tuesday to admitted that the EU should have ordered more Covid-19 vaccines while defending the bloc’s agreement to negotiate with drug companies.
“We made a conscious decision to buy the vaccines together and distribute them fairly,” Scholz said in a virtual forum on Europe. “But we also have to be critical and to admit that more should have been ordered ”, he added, underlining his support for a joint European strategy.
Scholz said the priority now is to speed up deliveries and “expand vaccine manufacturing capacity very quickly with whatever resources we have at our disposal.”
– With the help of Iain Rogers and Daniel Schaefer