MOSCOW (RUSSIA) – Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday that Russia has plans to vaccinate more than 400,000 military personnel against COVID-19. Authorities reported a record 27,543 new coronavirus cases.
Indian pharmaceutical company Hetero will produce more than 100 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine per year following the terms of a deal struck with Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund introduced on Friday.
Siberia’s Vector Institute, developing EpiVacCorona, Russia’s second COVID-19 vaccine, said immunity would not last for long and that additional vaccinations would be necessary for six to ten months after the first two shots, and then once every three years.
Alexander Ryzhikov, head of the institute’s zoonotic infections and influenza department, said the Vector Institute was ready to produce up to five million doses of its vaccine per year.
Shoigu said already 2,500 military personnel had been vaccinations against COVID already. The total is expected to reach 80,000 by the end of the year.
Deputy Mayor Anastasia Rakova said that in Moscow, between 1,500 and 1,700 patients were being hospitalised with the virus every day.
News agencies quoted Rakova as saying, as infections in the capital saw a surge to a record high 7,918, “The situation with coronavirus in Moscow remains very tense, today we have recorded a so-called new anti-record.”
Despite the increase, Rakova said around 5,000 hospital beds were still available and that 12 additional computerised tomography (CT) scan centres had been started to provide assistance throughout the day to patients.
Russia has the fourth-largest number of COVID-19 cases in the world behind the United States, India and Brazil, with 2,215,533 infections. It has recorded 38,558 deaths related to COVID-19 until now.