MOSCOW (AP) – President Vladimir Putin called his Argentine counterpart on Monday, who tested positive for COVID-19 despite receiving a Russian vaccine.
The Kremlin said in its reading of the call that Argentine President Alberto Fernández told Putin that he only had mild symptoms thanks to the Sputnik V. Fernández vaccine thanked Russia for offering help in fighting the coronavirus and expressed interest in obtaining additional supplies from Russian vaccine, according to the Kremlin statement.
Putin congratulated Fernández, who turned 62 on Friday, on his birthday and wished him a speedy recovery.
In a tweet on Saturday, Fernández said he had a headache and a fever of 37.3 degrees Celsius (99.1 degrees Fahrenheit). He said he otherwise has mild symptoms, is isolating himself and is “physically well”.
The Argentine president received a dose of Sputnik V on January 21 and a second dose a few days later.
The Russian Gamaleya Institute, which produced the vaccine, tweeted that it wishes the president a speedy recovery and said the vaccine was 91.6 percent effective against infection and 100 percent effective in critical cases.
More than 650,000 people in Argentina received both scheduled vaccines and only about 1,000 of them were infected more than 14 days after the final dose, according to national health statistics.
None of the vaccines used against the new coronavirus completely eliminate infections, although they have been shown to dramatically reduce the rate of infection and its severity.
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