PRAGUE (AP) – Russia on Thursday asked Slovakia to return its Sputnik V vaccines it had received “due to multiple contract violations.”
The official Twitter account of the Sputnik V vaccine said that Slovakia’s drug regulator “tested” Sputnik V “in violation of the existing contract and in a sabotage operation” in a laboratory not part of the EU official medicine control network not.
It tweeted the Slovak State Institute for Drug Control “has launched a disinformation campaign against Sputnik V and is planning additional provocations.”
The Slovak Institute said that the network of EU-certified laboratory tests only registered vaccines in the European Union, which is not the case with Sputnik. He added that he did not know details about the Russian-Slovak contract because it was classified.
The announcement came hours after the Slovak regulator said it had not received enough information about its producer’s Russian vaccine to assess its benefits and risks. The Slovak Institute said about 80% of the requested data was not provided.
The vaccine delivered to Slovakia is said to be different from the Sputnik V vaccine which is considered to be 91% effective and prevents vaccinated individuals from becoming seriously ill with COVID-19, according to a study published in the Lancet .
Sputnik V has not yet been approved for use in the EU, but the body’s regulator, the European Medicines Agency, launched an ongoing investigation into the vaccine last month. The Slovak drug agency said the Sputnik V vaccine being reviewed by the EU was also different from the one sent to Slovakia.
The Russian side calls it ‘fake news’.
“All Sputnik V groups are of the same quality and undergo strict quality control at the Gamaleya Institute,” he said. “The quality of Sputnik V has been confirmed by regulators in 59 countries.”
But the Slovaks said the vaccines appeared to have “just the name in common”.
Slovakia’s coalition government collapsed last month after Prime Minister Igor Matovic arranged a secret deal to buy 2 million Sputnik V vaccines, despite differences of opinion between his coalition partners. Matovic welcomes the first 200,000 Russian vaccines to an airport on March 1.
Matovic, who now serves as finance minister and deputy prime minister in the new government sworn in last week, was in Moscow on Thursday to discuss further deliveries of vaccines. According to the Russians, Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which bankrolled the vaccine and marketed it abroad, “had a productive meeting” with Matovic.
But the fund demanded that the Slovaks send Sputnik V to an EU-certified laboratory for testing and asked them to return the vaccines they had received so that they could be “used in other countries.”
“Congratulations, idiots,” Matovic said in a message on Facebook to opponents of the Sputnik agreement. He said he was not ready to give it up and planned to announce his further steps on Friday.
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Daria Litvinova in Moscow contributed.
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