Vaccine rollout in Russia as infections surge

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 05 Jul 2021 by Alex Teddy

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Russians are reluctant to get vaccinated. On June 30 only 16% of people had had at least one dose. In the UK, by contrast, the figure is over 80%. Russia has the highest number of doctors per capita in the world so it should be doing much better. People in Russia are being vaccinated at a rate of 250,000 per day.Coronavirus is surging. For 5 days in a row the record for daily deaths was broken, and on July 3 there were 700 coronavirus deaths.Some regions have made vaccination compulsory. This is usually for frontline workers such as police officers, doctors and transport staff.More people want vaccines than there are doses available. However, the problem does not exist in the two biggest cities. The delivery system is partly culpable. 36.7 million doses have been produced for use inside Russia. More doses have been exported. A further 30 million doses shall be produced in July 2021. Russia is finding it hard to service its domestic needs and to honor extant export contracts. There are several companies producing Sputnik V. R Pharm is one of them and another is Generium. Both of these companies claimed they could step up production considerably. Pharmasyntez is a company that had declined to make the Sputnik V because it is too difficult. It is making Sputnik Light which is for export only.If a company wants to make Sputnik V it has to make a test batch and then wait for governmental approval for mass production. The four-month time lag between sending off the batch and approval is slowing mass production. Sputnik V is complex to make. Its two doses have different formulations. There is a risk of cross contamination. The government wanted 60% of the people to be vaccina...