MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/. Storage of the Sputnik V vaccine at 2-8 degrees Centigrade is currently allowed for two months but developers hope to extend this term to six months, Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Healthcare Ministry that developed the vaccine, said.

"The manual for the preparation includes a possibility to store it at a temperature of a usual household fridge and not at minus 18, for two months. Yet there is a complication that practically one month out of these two is spent on quality checks, so technically there is only a month left to deliver the vaccine and administer it to an individual. This isn’t much. Yet currently this process is being researched. As the work progresses, I hope, this term will be increased to six months," he said in a joint interview with TASS and the Kazinform news agency.

According to the developer, the increased storage period at a higher temperature will allow simplifying the logistics of deliveries of the preparation and lowering the expenses.

In January, the Russian Healthcare Ministry authorized the storage and transportation of Sputnik V at a temperature of 2-8 degrees Centigrade while earlier it was allowed to store the vaccine only at minus 18 degrees.