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Guatemala intends to purchase additional doses of Sputnik V

The Minister of Foreign Affairs drew attention to the huge potential for developing trade and economic cooperation with Russia and the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union by increasing exports of Guatemalan products, attracting investments, and increasing counter supplies to the Central American markets

MOSCOW, June 24. /TASS/. Guatemala expects to purchase a sufficient number of doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in the near future to complete the vaccination program against coronavirus, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala Pedro Brolo Vila said on Thursday at a joint press conference following talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

According to the minister, the country hopes that it hopes to receive a necessary number of Sputnik V doses from Russia. He noted that negotiations on the topic had already taken place at the Russian Direct Investment Fund and the Russian Ministry of Health. He also recalled that Guatemala became the 10th Latin American country to register Sputnik V.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs drew attention to the huge potential for developing trade and economic cooperation with Russia and the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union by increasing exports of Guatemalan products, attracting investments, and increasing counter supplies to the Central American markets.

In turn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that Russia and Guatemala are considering speeding up subsequent shipments of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. "We paid much attention to strengthening cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and in the health sector in general," he said.

"There is a contract for the supply of Sputnik V, the first batch was received in May-June. Today we were talking about the need to speed up the delivery of the following batches. We will work on it," Lavrov said.

In February, Guatemala’s Ministry of Health registered Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.

On May 6, Guatemalan foreign ministry announced that the country had received the first batch of the vaccine.

In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.