MOSCOW ROLLS OUT ITS COVID-19 VACCINATION PROGRAMME

Sat 05 December 2020:

Russia has started its COVID-19 vaccination programme, with the first jabs going to workers at high risk of becoming infected with coronavirus.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered a nationwide voluntary vaccination programme to begin next week. He said Russia will have produced 2 million vaccine doses within the next few days.

The head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, said in an interview with the BBC on Friday that Russia expects to give the vaccine to about 2 million people this month.

“Over the first five hours, 5,000 people signed up for the jab – teachers, doctors, social workers, those who are today risking their health and lives the most,” Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on his personal website on Friday.

Russia has already vaccinated more than 100,000 high-risk people, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said earlier this week during a separate presentation to the United Nations about Sputnik V.

The Sputnik V vaccine is administered in two injections, with the second dose is expected to be given 21 days after the first.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said on Friday that the vaccinated should avoid public places and reduce their intake of medicine and alcohol, which could suppress the immune system, within the first 42 days after the first jab.

The country raised eyebrows around the world when it declared its vaccine was ready in August, months before any other country gave approval to a vaccine.

Experts doubted whether it could be deemed ready and safe due to the short time period of testing and the small number of people it had been tested on.

Trials are still underway, so the vaccine will currently only be offered to people under the age of 60, and who have no chronic diseases.

Health officials said that they had opened 70 clinics in the Russian capital Moscow, and the shots will initially be offered to health, education and social workers.

President Vladimir Putin announced the rollout hours after Britain became the first country in the world to authorise the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine on Thursday.

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is being rolled out amid record infection rates in the country, with a daily record 28,145 cases reported on Thursday, and another 27,403 on Friday.

Russia’s total number of COVID-19 cases – nearly 2.4 million – remains the world’s fourth-highest. The government coronavirus task force has reported more than 41,000 deaths in the pandemic.

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