Argentina begins local production of Russia's Sputnik vaccine

Argentine President Alberto Fernández and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced today that Argentina will start mass production of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine.

Production will formally begin at the Laboratorios Richmond SA plant in the western Buenos Aires suburb of Fátima, after the first shipment of the active vaccine ingredient arrives from Russia on Sunday.

“Argentina is the first country to begin production of the (Sputnik V) outside Russia,” Richmond Labs CEO Marcelo Figueiras, noted. “And by the end of this year we expect to reach a production rate of 100 million doses annually.”

This production level would allow Argentina to export the vaccine throughout Latin America. Richmond Labs produced the first test batch on April 20th, and Russia’s Gamaleya Institute approved Argentine production on Wednesday.

Argentina bet big on Sputnik last year as talks with Pfizer and other labs hit snags and production of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Mexico faced major delays due to U.S. export restrictions on certain vaccine components until recently.

Russia, Fernández noted, “helped us find the vaccines the world wasn’t giving us,”

Argentina has received 8.9 million Sputnik doses so far this year, accounting for nearly half of its total vaccine supply thus far.

Initially slammed by the right-wing opposition, the Sputnik V vaccine faced public skepticism until a peer-reviewed study published by The Lancet on February 2nd showed the vaccine protects against the deadly virus about as well as U.S. and European shots - and far more effectively than Chinese rivals, which account for most doses in the rest of South America.

Fernández’s opposition has since changed tack, with most criticism now aimed at the perceived slowness in the vaccination campaign.

Recent polling shows that while 79% of Argentine adults are willing to be vaccinated, 59% disapprove of Fernández's handling of the pandemic and 62% believe vaccination is going “slowly.”

Some 13.6 million vaccine doses have thus far been given in the country of 45 million, though only 3 million Argentines have received both doses - just 9% of the adult population.

Argentina has been hit hard by the recent Manaus and Andes Covid-19 strains, with daily cases since March rising from around 7,000 to 30,950 today - and deaths likewise jumping from an average of 126 in March, to 539 today.

At: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/argentina-formally-starts-producing-russias-sputnik-vaccine.phtml

Argentine President Alberto Fernández (right) speaks during today's St. Petersburg International Economic Forum webcast with Richmond Labs CEO Marcelo Figueiras and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The announcement makes Argentina the first nation outside Russia to produce the Sputnik V vaccine - and one of only around a dozen in the world to produce any Covid-19 vaccine.