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Coronavirus pandemic

Czech Republic counts on Sputnik V vaccine supplies as soon as possible

The country’s President Milos Zeman told that he had sent a letter to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin with a request to deliver the vaccine

Czech President Milos Zeman EPA-EFE/MARTIN DIVISEK

Czech President Milos Zeman

© EPA-EFE/MARTIN DIVISEK

PRAGUE, February 28. /TASS/. Czech Republic counts on supplies of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus in the near future. The country’s President Milos Zeman told the local CNN Prima on Saturday that he had sent a letter to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin with a request to deliver the vaccine to the republic as soon as possible.

"If I am correctly informed, my request will be satisfied," Zeman said.

"Of course, we will need certification [for Sputnik V], not necessarily by the European Medicines Agency. To me a certificate from the Czech State Institute for Drug Control will be enough," he said.

The host of the TV program said that Zeman had turned to Putin about the vaccine following the agreement with the Prime Minister of the republic, Andrej Babis. The head of government had repeatedly inquired about the possibility of obtaining Sputnik V.

Earlier on Saturday, the Czech Ministry of Health announced that the coronavirus pandemic in the country has already killed 20,194 people.

At the end of the week, the country ranked the first in the world in terms of the number of new infections per 1 million of population. The total number of infected people in the Czech Republic, where 10.46 million people live, is 1,227,595.

Czech Republic launched the vaccination against coronavirus on December 27, 2020. To date, 644,300 inhabitants got the vaccine. The republic received the vaccines produced by the Pfizer (the U.S.) and BioNTech (Germany) as well as by Moderna (he U.S.) and British-Swedish company AstraZeneca. The Czech authorities are interested in the early registration of Sputnik V by the European Medicines Agency.

Sputnik V is one of the world's top three coronavirus vaccines in terms of the number of approvals issued by government regulators. Sputnik V had been approved earlier in Russia, Belarus, Argentina, Bolivia, Serbia, Algeria, Palestine, Venezuela, Paraguay, Turkmenistan, Hungary, UAE, Iran, Republic of Guinea, Tunisia, Armenia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Republika Srpska (entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina), Lebanon, Myanmar, Pakistan, Mongolia, Bahrain, Montenegro, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Gabon, San Marino, and Ghana.

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