MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/. Seven countries, including India, Mexico and Bangladesh, have shown interest in purchasing Russia’s EpiVacCorona vaccine, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview with TASS.
"As for EpiVacCorona, export opportunities are being explored. In addition to Venezuela, another seven countries are showing potential interest in the supply of that vaccine. These are Mexico, Vietnam, Morocco, Pakistan, India, Argentina, and Bangladesh," he said.
Manturov earlier said that the overall production of the CoviVac and EpiVacCorona vaccines was insufficient to meet external demand but the requests can be met at the end of the year.
According to the minister, up to 14.5 million EpiVacCorona vaccine doses can be manufactured this year. He noted though that vaccine supplies to Russians were a priority.
In June, Russia’s Geropharm company signed an agreement with Venezuela’s government on the supply of 10 million doses of the EpiVacCorona vaccine, the shipping is expected to begin in September. Caracas hopes to launch domestic production of the vaccine in the future, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said.
EpiVacCorona developed by the Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnolog was the second COVID-19 vaccine registered in Russia. That happened on October 14, 2020.