For The Wall Street Journal, Argentina is a “testing ground” for the Russian Vaccine

The prestigious American newspaper The Wall Street Journal published this Monday an article in which he assures that the Argentina “is a testing ground for Moscow’s global vaccine campaign.” With that title, the newspaper criticized the vaccination campaign in Argentina and warned about the Russian strategy to capture the market of emerging countries in the fight against the coronavirus.

The publication suggests that “Argentina is today the main country outside of Russia that is vaccinating on a large scale with the Sputnik V”, Since this weekend the second doses of the 300,000 vaccination schedules that are being applied to health personnel arrived.

The contract signed with the government of Vladimir Putin establishes the sale of doses to vaccinate a total of 10 million people before February, with the option of 5 million more to March, as announced by the president Alberto Fernandez when he presented the contract, in early December.

Regarding the local vaccination campaign, the newspaper affirms that the Russian vaccine and its safety “aroused a certain distrust among Argentines.” “Argentina is the first major country outside of Russia that begins to inoculate itself with Sputnik on a large scale. However, the launch there has highlighted issues related to the lack of transparency about the efficacy of the vaccine sponsored by the state, which has aroused certain mistrust among Argentines regarding their safety, ”reads the article on our country.

Moscow approved the Sputnik V for home use in August before testing ended. Data published since then have shown that the vaccine was 91.4% effective in protecting people from COVID-19, and A peer-reviewed study is expected to be published in the next few weeks. About a million Russians have received the vaccine.

Other countries have been quick to buy a cheaper vaccine than Western alternatives. Sputnik V, named for the Soviet satellite launched into orbit during the Cold War, ranks third in the world for doses ordered by low- and middle-income countries, according to the Center for Innovation in Global Health of the Duke University, ahead of US pharmacists Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. and China vaccines. Eight countries outside of Russia have authorized the injection for emergency use.

However, the Russian vaccine it has not been approved by the Western health authorities nor has it received authorization from the WHO, on which many developing countries depend to test vaccines. Russia has started talks with the European Medicines Agency on the approval of the injection in the European Union and has requested authorization from the WHO.

“In Argentina, who began applying Sputnik V to his population on December 29 and ordered 20 million doses, the lack of documentation on clinical trials in Russia with older people has led the Argentine government to inoculate only people under 60 years of age ”, they assure from the American newspaper. And they continue: “Although the Russian authorities say they have provided data to Argentina showing that the vaccine is safe for people 60 years of age or older, the National Administration of Medicines, Food and Medical Technology, ANMAT, says it has not received the documentation”.

According The Wall Street Journal, only 39% of Argentines have some degree of confidence in the Sputnik V vaccine, compared to nearly 60% of the vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech SE, and AstraZeneca PLC and the University of Oxford.

“Among the first countries in Latin America to begin to inoculate, 200,000 people in Argentina have received Sputnik V, mostly health personnel and other essential workers. Many of them they have been happy to receive the injection and say that Argentines will become less skeptical as more doses are administered ”, they hold.

The poorest countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia they have limited options for securing vaccinations, although they hope to receive them later in the year through the initiative Covax endorsed by the World Health Organization. With the United States and European nations purchasing the majority of available Western-made doses, Russia has taken a step forward.

Moscow hopes to tap into a global market for coronavirus vaccines estimated by Russian officials at $ 100 billion annually. “We were in the right place at the right time with one of the best vaccines in the world and we wanted to share it with the world,” he said. Kirill Dmitriev, Executive Director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a sovereign fund that financed the development of the vaccine and markets it internationally.

Russian officials say aim for a market share of up to 30% Among the vaccines against COVID-19 in the countries that buy Sputnik V. And in an attempt to accelerate the global launch, they are highlighting the possibility of administering only one dose, which according to the Russian authorities is 73% to 85% effective %.

Besides Argentina, only Serbia and Belarus are currently applying the vaccine. More than a dozen countries have signed deals with Russia, including India and Mexico. The country has received requests or expressions of interest for 2.4 billion doses.

For your foreign clients, Russia plans to produce vaccines abroad, even in a Brazilian laboratory, União Química, which hopes to produce vaccines for neighboring countries. On Friday, the Russian Fund for Direct Investment requested regulatory approval in Brazil for the emergency use of 10 million doses by the first quarter of 2021. However, Brazil’s health regulator, Anvisasaid on Saturday that the injection did not meet the minimum requirements for such authorization. They also said that the laboratory did not give Anvisa adequate guarantees about the Sputnik V stage 3 tests in the country.

“By suffering one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Latin America, Argentina initially hoped to obtain vaccines from Western producers, but failed to come to terms with Pfizer for reasons that Argentine officials have not disclosed. The government of the president Alberto Fernandez has an agreement with AstraZeneca to receive 22 million doses, but the delivery date is unclear. Meanwhile, the Russian vaccine was ready to go. At less than USD 10 per opportunity, Sputnik V was an attractive alternative for the Argentine government, which defaulted on USD 65 billion in foreign debt last year and whose net reserves are close to zero, according to private economists ”, ended.

I KEEP READING:

The Aerolineas Argentinas plane arrived in Ezeiza with the second batch of 300,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine

Alberto Fernández spoke with Moderna and it was confirmed that there will only be Russian vaccines to apply until the end of March

Sputnik V in Argentina: what the second security surveillance report says after the first applications