Russian Sputnik V vaccine going to over 40 countries as the West accumulates injections

• The Russian Sputnik V vaccine has been approved in more than 40 countries, its manufacturers said.
• Many have little access to photos taken by Western companies like Pfizer and Moderna.
• An expert told Insider that Russia’s intervention would give it a geopolitical advantage.
• Visit the Business section of the Insider for more stories.

The Russian Sputnik V vaccine is gaining ground in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.

More than 40 countries have reached agreements with vaccine manufacturers, many of whom have little ability to access vaccines on demand made by Western companies that are driving vaccination campaigns in the US and Europe.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund, the body that supported the vaccine and manages its marketing, listed the nations in a press release on Wednesday.

They are:

• Europe: Russia, Belarus, Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary, Armenia, Montenegro, San Marino, Moldova.
• Asia: Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Syria, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Syria, Mongolia, Sri Lanka.
• Americas: Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guyana, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Honduras, Guatemala.
• Africa and Middle East: Algeria, Angola, Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Republic of Guinea, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Bahrain, Lebanon, Gabon, Egypt, Ghana.

The vaccine is also approved by the Palestinian Authority and an entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina called Republika Srpska, the statement said.

This is not just about public health, of course. There is also an advantage for Russia. The drive to distribute vaccines worldwide is a chance to polish its image abroad and strengthen alliances, while most Western nations are focused on their own populations.

The Sputnik deal – posted on social media and in pictures favorable to public relations – seems part of a trend that is being dubbed “vaccine diplomacy”.

Kirill Dmitriev, RDIF’s CEO, told Insider on February 2 that he had little interest in seeing the vaccine used in the United States and only a moderate interest in sending it to Europe.

Outside these markets, however, there is a wide field. In addition to the United States and Western Europe, relatively few doses are available from vaccine manufacturers, such as AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.

Nations like the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have repeatedly ordered enough doses to vaccinate their populations, leading to accusations of accumulation. They are also getting their doses earlier.

A mechanism that aims to provide access to the poorest countries, the World Health Organization’s COVAX program, has been slow to deliver vaccines. The first arrived in Africa on Monday.

Lawrence Gostin, professor of medicine at Georgetown University and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Legislation, told Insider in an interview that the distribution of doses was obviously unfair.

“What should be a politically neutral scientific medical resource that saves lives is being divided around the world, according to the spheres of political and geostrategic influence,” he said.

This created a vacuum in the poorest countries.

RDIF does not hide its intentions. “Our priority is the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, Africa, those countries that are very eager to acquire Sputnik,” Dmitriev told the Saudi newspaper Arab News in an interview on January 18.

“Russia is selling to desperate people,” said Gostin. “Governments realize that people are dying, that [COVID-19] is shaking their economies, and they are losing public confidence. “

“If it were an informed and competitive market, countries could choose between several vaccines that are equally effective or more effective,” said Gostin. “They probably wouldn’t accept Russian.”

The injection proved to be highly effective in clinical trials, with 91.6% effectiveness. But at this point, the shot was mired in suspicion because the Russian government decided to start using the injection on its population months before the trials ended.

“Once a country blatantly violates all scientific and ethical rules on vaccine implantation, it is difficult to regain confidence, at least in the people who have a choice,” said Gostin.

“They can choose between doing nothing or giving hope to the country. And the Russian vaccine represents hope.”

Some countries have already received doses.

Argentina leads in terms of the number of Sputnik V vaccines administered in Latin America, where the vaccine is advancing. He had already administered more than 270,000 first doses and 45,000 second doses in January, Reuters reported on January 28. She ordered 20 million doses of the vaccine.

Mexico, Venezuela, Bolivia and Paraguay also received some doses and expect more.

Edgard Garrido / Reuters

The vaccine is also gaining ground in Europe, especially among Eastern European countries, which are historically closer to Russia.

The Serbian prime minister received a dose of the Sputnik V vaccine in December, the BBC reported on 10 February.

The country vaccinated about 1.5 million of its inhabitants with a combination of the Pfizer-BioNTech injection, the Chinese injection of Sinovac and Sputnik V. Within that number, it was unclear how many Sputnik jabs.

“We don’t care, as long as they are safe and receive them as quickly as possible,” Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic told the BBC on February 10 about the origins of the vaccines.

The small European nations of San Marino and Montenegro also received two thousand doses of Sputnik V. each.

Some European countries have expressed interest in the vaccine, but appear to be waiting for the influential European Medicines Agency to give its approval. Countries can move without EMA approval, but they tend not to.

The EMA announced that it was starting a continuous review of the Sputnik V vaccine on Thursday.

Frustrated by the delays, some of the EU Member States have decided not to wait for the EMA. Hungary was the first member state to split from the bloc.

“Every day that we would spend waiting for Brussels, we would lose a hundred Hungarian lives,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Hungarian radio, The Irish Times reported on 14 February. “I don’t trust a [vaccine] analysis in Brussels more than in Hungarian. “

As of Thursday, Hungary had administered 19,582 doses, according to data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Slovakia did the same. She bought 2 million doses of Sputnik V and received 200,000 doses of the vaccine on Wednesday.

“It is right to buy the Russian vaccine, since COVID-19 knows nothing about geopolitics,” Slovakia’s prime minister, Igor Matovic, told The Moscow Times on Monday.

Former Soviet countries Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have also started to manage Sputnik V.

Pavel Aleksandrov / TASS via Getty Images

Russia has been eager to capitalize on the advertising opportunities that its vaccine distribution offers, often with a few theatrical performances.

The scenario is practically the same in several countries. Journalists are invited to the airport runways to witness the unloading of vaccine boxes, stamped with the Sputnik V and RDIF logo or with a Russian flag.

Here is Paraguay:

And here is Slovakia:

Africa could have been a more difficult sale for the Russian vaccine, as the continent has a close relationship with the Chinese government, which has invested heavily in infrastructure development in Africa.

China has been slow to deliver vaccines there, however, and the African Union has already secured 3 million doses from Russia, due in May.

They will have a price. RDIF had announced that the vaccine would be “two or more times cheaper” than mRNA vaccines, such as Pfizer. But the price, just under $ 10 per injection, ended up being much more than what the AU is paying for doses of AstraZeneca ($ 3) or Pfizer ($ 6.75), reported the Financial Times last week.

Algeria began vaccinating with Sputnik V on 30 January, and Egypt gave emergency authorization for the vaccine to be used on 24 February.

In the Middle East, Iran started vaccinating with Sputnik V on February 9. The first dose was administered to the son of Iran’s health minister to help ease public suspicion of the vaccine, Al Jazeera reported.

The UAE gave emergency approval for the vaccine on January 21, before the results of the final-stage trial were published.

The Palestinian Authority also administered some doses of the injection, after Russia sent 1,000 doses of Sputnik V and the United Arab Emirates another 20,000 doses of Sputnik V.

SAID KHATIB / AFP via Getty Images

For Gostin, the health expert, geopolitical advantage is not the only driver of Russia’s strategy.

“This is a way of demonstrating that Russia’s technological capacity is equal to that of the West,” Gostin told Insider.

“It is not by chance that it was called Sputnik, because it really resembles the race to the moon with the United States.

“The truth is that you have Russia doing vaccine policy, trying to get a geostrategic advantage and reinforcing its image abroad. Then you have Europe, the USA, the United Kingdom and Canada that are accumulating vaccines and robbing less countries from income.

“I don’t know if the leaders of Europe and the United States can look in the mirror and feel any kind of ethical superiority.”