Covid-19: Russia to sell 100 million doses of Sputnik-V vaccine to India

Russia’s sovereign wealth fund has agreed a deal to sell 100 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik-V, to a major listed pharmaceutical company in India, news agency Reuters reported on Wednesday afternoon. It said that clinical trials of the Russian vaccine in India are expected to follow and to be held jointly with this firm. Both the trials and supply deal depend on domestic regulatory approval. 

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has already inked vaccine supply deals with Kazakhstan, Brazil and Mexico and has reached a manufacturing partnership agreement with India to produce 300 million doses of the Sputnik-V vaccine there. 

The report doesn’t mention the name of the Indian company that has reached the agreement but says that it will be announced soon.  

Russia has billed Sputnik-V as the first vaccine against coronavirus to be registered in the world. Large-scale trials, known as Phase III, involving at least 40,000 people, were launched in Russia on Aug, 26 but have yet to be completed. 

Meanwhile, a record 82,961 new COVID-19 recoveries were reported on Wednesday, almost a quarter of them from Maharashtra alone, pushing the overall figures close to 39.5 lakh and the recovery rate to 78.53 per cent, Health Ministry data showed. 

In its figures updated at 8 am Wednesday, the ministry said the number of active cases stands at 9,95,933 (or 19.84 per cent of the total caseload ), while the number of recovered patients is 39,42,360. 

It said that nearly 59 per cent of the new recoveries came from five states -- 23.41 per cent from Maharashtra (19, 423 recoveries); and a cumulative 35.5 per cent from Andhra Pradesh (9,628 recoveries), Karnataka (7,406), Uttar Pradesh (6,680) and Tamil Nadu (5,735).