Russia gives more than 800,000 people its COVID-19 vaccine

Russia’s health minister announced on Saturday that more than 800,000 citizens had received the country’s coronavirus vaccine, with more than 1.5 million doses distributed.

Reuters reported that the TASS news agency quoted Mikhail Murashko as saying that as of January 1, people who received the Sputnik V vaccine will receive an electronic verification certificate, with the Ministry of Health maintaining a database of all vaccinees.

Russia has the fourth largest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, with nearly 3.2 million people infected and more than 57,000 deaths due to the virus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

However, Russian officials said on Monday that the country the death toll is three times higher than initially reported, which means that the actual number of COVID-19 fatalities can be more than 186,000 people.

According to Reuters, the two doses of Sputnik V use different components and should be administered 21 days apart.

The Russian vaccine, which started to be launched in early December, was discovered by developers with a 91 percent effectiveness rate in preventing COVID-19 after two doses.

However, the inoculation received skepticism from some health experts as the Kremlin announced registration of the vaccine before all clinical trials were completed.

Despite this, the Russian vaccine has already been distributed to other countries.

On Tuesday, Argentina and Belarus started their launches of the Sputnik V vaccine, with about 300,000 Argentines being vaccinated. The Latin American country expects to receive 20 million doses in the next two months.

Venezuela also signed a contract this week to acquire enough doses of the Sputnik V vaccine to inoculate 10 million people, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said, according to Reuters. The country began administering doses in October, as part of a clinical trial.

Russian state media reported last week that the president Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich PutinThe biggest example of media malfeasance in 2020 is … Russia increases pressure on critic Navalny with new investigation Russia accuses monk of inciting suicidal actions through sermons denying COVID-19 MORE was scheduled to receive the vaccine, although he previously suggested that there was no reason for him to be vaccinated.

Putin said earlier that one of his daughters participated in a clinical trial for the Sputnik V vaccine in August.