ST. PETERSBURG, June 4. /TASS/. A delay in the authorization of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine in the European Union has a harmful effect, first and foremost, for Europeans, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.
"Of course, there is always certain politics somewhere, but in this case, in my opinion, economic and commercial interests to the detriment of European countries’ citizens are in question," he said at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
"Various European countries behave differently, including not for political reasons, but due to the fact that some have certain national bodies, laboratories that evaluate different pharmacological medicines, but others do not have such bodies and they have to wait for the European regulator’s ruling. However, some of those who do have [national agencies, laboratories] make decisions, for example like Hungary, they made this decision: they have certified and use Sputnik V," Putin noted.
Russia was the world’s first nation to register its coronavirus vaccine on August 11, 2020. The vaccine was named Sputnik V. Russia submitted applications for Sputnik V approval to the European Union and to the World Health Organization (WHO). To date, the Russian vaccine has been approved for use in over 60 counties with a cumulative population of over 1.5 billion. More than 30 countries have started mass vaccination drives with Sputnik V. Its 91.6% efficacy was confirmed by the publication of data in The Lancet, a world-acclaimed medical journal. On March 4, the European Medicines Agency announced that it had started a rolling review of Sputnik V.