MOSCOW, June 7. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Head of the European Council Charles Michel have discussed the pandemic in a phone conversation. Prospects for certifying Russia’s Sputnik V jab in the EU were also mentioned, the Kremlin press service reported on Monday.
"The issues of fighting the spread of the coronavirus infection were touched upon, including prospects on registering Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine in the EU and ensuring conditions for mutual travel of citizens with the observance of anti-epidemic restrictions," the statement said.
On August 11, 2020, Russia became the first country worldwide to register the Sputnik V vaccine and has already applied to certify this shot in the EU as well as with the World Health Organization. Russia’s Sputnik V jab has already been registered by the regulators of about 60 countries, with the total population surpassing 1.5 bln people. Over 30 countries have already launched mass inoculation drives with Sputnik V. The efficacy of the jab at the level of 91.6% was confirmed by the data published in the leading medical journal The Lancet.
On March 4, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) reported that it began the rolling review of the vaccine. As Yevgeny Primakov, Head of the Russian Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation noted earlier, Moscow believes that there are political overtones in the fact that the European Union had not yet certified Sputnik V. Russian Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov pointed out that there hadn’t yet been an understanding on the approximate dates of the vaccine’s registration in the EU. According to him, EMA experts continue visits to Russia in order to delve into this issue.