Govt readies ‘mini rollout’ of Russia-made Sputnik vax

THE government is set to launch a “mini rollout” of the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine Sputnik V manufactured by Russian pharmaceutical firm Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology.

During the public address of President Duterte on Monday evening, Chief implementer of the government’s national policy on Covid-19 Carlito G. Galvez Jr. reported the limited deployment will cover 20,000 doses of Sputnik V.

He said they opted to implement the precautionary measure since the vaccine is comprised of “different component” than the Covid-19 vaccines from Sinovac Biotech and Astrazeneca, which the government have been administering in its inoculation program.

“That is why we opted to first conduct test,” Galvez said.

He said the first batch of Sputnik V would arrive in the country by April 22, 2021 once they finalize their agreement with Gamaleya.

Another 480,000 doses of Sputnik V are also scheduled to arrive by April 29, 2021.

Galvez said this would make Gamaleya, together with Sinovac, as the main source of steady supply of Covid-19 vaccine by the government.

He noted another batch of 1 million doses of Sinovac’s Covid-19 vaccine, Coronavac, are expected to arrive in the next two weeks.

The Vaccines Global Access (Covax) facility also committed to finally ship 195,000 doses of the Pfizerbiontech vaccine before the end of April.

Galvez earlier said one of the factors for the slow pace of the government’s vaccine deployment is the utter lack of vaccine supply.

He expressed optimism that the arrival of the additional supplies of vaccines will help fast-track their vaccine rollout.