Russia gives more than 800,000 people its COVID-19 vaccine

Russia’s health minister announced on Saturday that more than 800,000 citizens had received the country’s coronavirus vaccine, with more than 1.5 million doses distributed.

Reuters reported that the TASS news agency quoted Mikhail Murashko as saying that people who received the Sputnik V vaccine would receive an electronic verification certificate from January 1, while the Ministry of Health would maintain a database of all those vaccinated.

Russia has the fourth highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, with nearly 3.2 million people infected and more than 57,000 deaths due to the virus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

However, Russian officials said Monday that the country the death toll is three times higher than initially reported, which means that the actual number of COVID-19 deaths could be more than 186,000 people.

According to Reuters, Sputnik V’s two doses use different components and must be administered 21 days apart.

The Russian vaccine, which started in early December, has a 91 percent efficacy rate by developers to prevent COVID-19 after two doses.

However, the vaccination received skepticism from some health experts, as the Kremlin announced the registration of the vaccine before all clinical trials were completed.

Despite this, the Russian vaccine has already been distributed to other countries.

On Tuesday, Argentina and Belarus have started of the Sputnik V vaccine, with about 300,000 Argentines expected to be vaccinated. The Latin American country expects to receive 20 million doses within the next two months.

Venezuela also signs a contract this week to get enough doses of the Sputnik V vaccine to vaccinate 10 million people, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez told Reuters. The country began administering doses in October as part of a clinical trial.

Russian state media reported last week that President Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich Putin The biggest example of failure in the media in 2020 is … Russia increases pressure on critic Navalny with new investigation Russia accuses monk of suicide by sermons denying COVID-19 MORE. wash receive the vaccine, despite having previously suggested that there was no reason to vaccinate him.

Putin said earlier that one of his daughters participated in a clinical trial for the Sputnik V vaccine in August.