India approves Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine
Moscow, Apr 13 (EFE).- The Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19 has been approved for emergency use in India, Russian authorities said.
The Russian sovereign wealth fund (RDIF) said India was the 60th country to authorize the jab.
In a late Monday statement, Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of the wealth fund, said: “We appreciate the decision of India’s regulatory bodies to grant authorization for Sputnik V.
“Approval of the vaccine is a major milestone as Russia and India have been developing an extensive cooperation on clinical trials of Sputnik V in India and its local production.”
India is the most populous country to authorize the jab so far.
It is set to join two vaccines already in use in India — Covaxin and Covishield, the latter being the domestically produced version of the AstraZeneca jab.
Sputnik V has an efficacy rate of 91.6% and prevents all severe cases of Covid-19, according to a study in The Lancet medical journal.
Dmitriev added that the RDIF had created partnerships with a number of Indian pharmaceutical companies to produce the vaccine.
“Over 850 million doses of Sputnik V are going to be produced in India annually, sufficient to vaccinate more than 425 million people around the world,” he said.
The authorization coms as India grapples with a second wave of infections.
On Monday India surpassed Brazil to become the second-most infected nation in the world after the United States.
The Asian nation has registered over 13.5 million cases since the pandemic began.EFE
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