MOSCOW, May 31. /TASS/. Serbia plans to manufacture four million doses of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine a year, Serbian parliament speaker Ivica Dacic said on Monday during talks with Russian upper parliament house speaker Valentina Matviyenko.
He noted that his country "did not rely entirely on the European Union’s and WHO’s promises" when it began its vaccination campaign against the novel coronavirus infection and thanked Russia for supplies of its coronavirus vaccine.
"I would like to say thanks not only for the possibility to purchase the vaccine but also for the possibility to manufacture it. Taking into account the studies, which are now coming to a close, we hope the vaccine production will begin in Serbia before the yearend and we will be the first country in Europe to manufacture it. We plan to manufacture four million vaccine doses a year," Dacic said.
Possible production of the Sputnik V vaccine in Serbia was among the topics discussed over the phone by Russian and Serbian Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Aleksandar Vucic, on February 3. After the conversation, Vucic said his country would build production facilities with the assistance of Russian specialists to organize the vaccine production. Serbia planned to begin packaging the Russian vaccine in May and to organize full-cycle production by the yearend.