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Cases of coronavirus infection are increasing in India. There is a shortage of oxygen and hospital beds in the country. At the same time the vaccination program is going on, but there are complaints of lack of covid vaccine from many states. India’s drug regulator allowed the Sputnik V vaccine of Russia a few days ago. Now the news has come that this vaccine can reach India on 1 May.
Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), has said that the first batch of the vaccine will reach India on 1 May. RDIF funding the Sputnik V vaccine.
Dimitriv gave this information in a conversation with the news agency Reuters. However, he did not say how many vaccine doses would be given in the first batch.
Kirill Dmitriev hoped that the supply of the Sputnik V vaccine would help India fight the pandemic. Earlier in a virtual press conference, Dimitrov said that he expects 5 crore doses of the vaccine to be manufactured in India this summer.
Many companies will produce
RDIF has tied up with at least five pharma companies in India for vaccine production. This includes Hetero Biopharma (100 million doses), Gland Pharma (252 million doses), Stelis Biopharma (200 million doses) and Virchow Biotech (200 million doses) in addition to Dr. Reddy Laboratories.
Overall, Sputnik V will have a production capacity of about 850 million doses annually in India.
Decision on price remaining
Dr. Reddy Laboratories has clarified that the discussion on the price of the vaccine is going on and no final decision has been taken on it yet. The company’s managing director GV Prasad had said, “The global price of the vaccine is US $ 10 which is INR 750 per dose as per Indian rupee.” However, the price of this vaccine to be imported into India is under discussion. Information about this will be given after the final decision is taken. “
Sputnik V has an efficacy of 91.6 percent. This was revealed by estimation of data from Phase 3 clinical trials. However, Russian scientists have found Sputnik V to be 97.6% effective against COVID-19 in a new assessment.
