ST. PETERSBURG, May 21. /TASS/. New Delhi is working on how to hand Russia samples of the Indian variant of COVID-19 for research, India’s Ambassador to Russia Bala Venkatesh Varma told reporters on Friday.
"The request has been received by the Indian side. Indian authorities are working on that," he said, answering a question from TASS.
India hopes to receive a new shipment of coronavirus aid from Russia in the coming days, India’s Ambassador told. "We expect more Russian aid to be given to India in the next few days," he said.
India will launch production of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine in August, Bala Venkatesh Varma said. "The production in India we expect to start in August," he said.
The Indian pharmaceutical company Dr. Reddy's Laboratories filed an application in February for limited use of Sputnik V in India. The bid was approved in April. The company is poised to distribute the Russian vaccine. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has struck deals with some Indian companies to produce the vaccine in the country.
India recorded 259,551 new single-day cases of COVID-19 on Friday, which pushed the total number of infections to 26,031,991. On May 21, the Indian Health Ministry said that in the past 24 hours the death toll had risen by 4,209 to reach 291,331.