MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has provided all the required paperwork on the Sputnik V anti-coronavirus vaccine to the World Health Organization (WHO), WHO Representative to Russia Melita Vujnovic told the Soloviev Live YouTube channel on Saturday.

"On December 30, the Direct Investment Fund submitted to the WHO all documents that were required. We expect inspections to take place in February," she said.

In December 2021, WHO Spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told TASS that in October the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) signed all necessary agreements to review Sputnik V’s application for inclusion in the EUL (Emergency Use Listing). In late November, the WHO and the RDIF discussed the necessity of additional data on the quality, safety and efficacy of the vaccine and the RDIF promised to provide a detailed roadmap of data submission so that the WHO could speed up the assessment procedure.

In December, Dmitry Birichevsky, director of the Russian foreign ministry’s economic cooperation department, said that his ministry expected the WHO to approve the Sputnik V vaccine in the first half of next year. In his words, only some technical paperwork needed to be finalized.