Putin to Get Coronavirus Vaccine; Russia’s vaccine strategy in pictures

LONDON – Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to receive a coronavirus shot on Tuesday as the country’s vaccination strategy is surrounded by intrigue.

The Kremlin said it would not reveal the name of the vaccine Putin will receive, only that it would be one of three shots taken in Russia.

“We are deliberately not saying what shot the president will get, and note that all three Russian vaccines are absolutely reliable and effective,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, Reuters reported Tuesday.

There are three Russian vaccines – Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona and CoviVac – the last two of which have only recently received emergency approval.

The Russian president is likely to receive the vaccine on Tuesday evening, Peskov added. It is unclear whether he will be filmed upon receiving the recording, as Peskov noted that Putin did not like being vaccinated in front of the camera.

The vaccination is because the spotlight falls on the country’s vaccine strategy. On Monday, Putin praised the multimillion-dollar international sales of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid vaccine, but the country’s own rollout appears slow, in stark contrast to the large number of vaccines destined for the international market.

There are reports that Russia’s own production capacity is low and Putin seemed to nod to this on Monday. He said Russia needed to increase vaccine production for domestic use and that meeting domestic needs was a priority, according to Reuters.

He noted that 4.3 million people in the country had already received two doses of the vaccine. This is significantly higher than, say, the UK, which has so far given about 2.3 million people both doses, but Russia was the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine (Sputnik V) in August 2020 – the UK approved it. first admission in early December.

Russia has a number of logistical challenges to overcome when rolling out a vaccine. It is the largest country in the world and has a population of about 144 million people, spread over an area that includes Europe and Northern Asia.

In early March, Putin noted that all but nine of Russia’s regions had started deploying the vaccine, with delays related to “problems with logistics, distribution (and) locations,” the Moscow Times reported.

Global data on vaccination programs shows that Russia is lagging behind many other countries in its own domestic rollout, with the number of single doses administered in Russia being just above the number in Bangladesh, according to Our World in Data.

The vaccination data becomes even more striking given that Russia has been hit so badly by the pandemic: it has the fourth highest number of cases recorded in the world (over 4.4 million) and more than 94,000 people have died of Covid in the country. , according to Johns Hopkins University.

Another major problem hampering Russia’s rollout is citizens’ reluctance to get vaccinations. Daragh McDowell, head of Europe and chief Russia analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC that the country’s lower vaccination rates “are likely due much more to a lack of readiness on the part of popular skepticism about the vaccine than a lack of supply “.

He noted that the latest data from the Levada Center, an independent surveyor in Russia, suggests that only 30% of Russians are “willing to get vaccinated, a number that has even fallen since last year.”

“This is mainly due to concerns about side effects and that the vaccine has not been tested enough – in other words, while the Kremlin got a propaganda boost by getting the vaccine out first, it was at the expense of doubts about its safety.” on.

Sputnik V was initially only authorized in Russia for people aged 18-60, meaning Putin, who is 68, was too old to receive it. However, further trials in seniors have shown that the vaccine was safe in people 60 and older, and that age group can now get the shot.

“The fact that Putin has waited so long to be vaccinated himself will not have gone unnoticed and will have contributed to these doubts,” McDowell added.

“The president’s vaccination will convince some Russians of the vaccine’s efficacy and safety (but) a high level of social mistrust and conspiratorial thinking will mitigate its impact.”

He stressed that the same survey data showing that 30% of Russians were willing to get vaccinated also showed that nearly two-thirds believed that Covid had been artificially developed as a biological weapon.

Another aspect of the Russian vaccine program that is drawing attention is the large international sales of the vaccine. On Monday, Putin confirmed that Russia had signed international sales agreements for Sputnik V doses for 700 million people.

RDIF, the Russian sovereign wealth fund that supported the development and deployment of Sputnik V, said on Tuesday that Sputnik V had now been approved in 56 countries, with Vietnam last on the list. Several countries in Eastern Europe, such as Hungary and Slovakia, have also ordered Sputnik V doses.

Meanwhile, the European medicines regulatory agency began an ongoing review of Sputnik V earlier this month.

McDowell of Verisk Maplecroft stressed that while the 700 million dose exports were “an extraordinarily ambitious number,” it is likely to include products produced abroad, such as in India and South Korea, under license.

The Russian Sputnik V vaccine was approved by the Russian health regulator in August last year before the clinical trials were completed, sparking skepticism among experts that it may not meet strict safety and efficacy standards. Some experts argued that the Kremlin was eager to claim victory in the race to develop a Covid vaccine, an indictment it took to other countries. Russia has repeatedly said that its vaccine is the target of anti-Russian sentiments.

Russia seemed to be in the right at the beginning of February, when an interim analysis of phase 3 clinical trials of the shot, involving 20,000 participants, was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet. The vaccine was found to be 91.6% effective against symptomatic Covid-19 infection.

In an accompanying article in the Lancet, Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, England, noted that “the development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticized for its inappropriate haste. But the outcome reported here is clear and scientific. vaccination principle has been demonstrated, meaning that another vaccine can now participate in the fight to reduce the incidence of Covid-19. ”