"Sputnik V Vaccine's India Production To Start Soon": Russian Envoy

Expressing his happiness at the delivery of the first batch of Sputnik V vaccine to India, Russian envoy Nikolay Kudashev on Saturday said that the local production is about to start soon and is planned to be gradually increased up to 850 million doses per year.

Earlier today, a flight carrying the first lot of Russian vaccines landed in Hyderabad, Telangana.

"Happy to share that the first batch of the Sputnik V vaccine was delivered in Hyderabad today! As Russia and India continue dedicated joint efforts to combat the #COVID19, this move is especially important to support the Indian Government's endeavours to mitigate the deadly second wave and save lives," said Ambassador Kudashev

The Russian envoy also said that the efficacy of the Sputnik V is among the highest in the world, and this vaccine will also be effective against new strains of COVID-19,

"Its local production is about to start soon and is planned to be gradually increased up to 850 million doses per year. Look forward to further expand our bilateral and multilateral cooperation with India to stop the pandemic," he added.

Last month, the Drug Controller General (DCGI) had issued permission for Dr Reddy's Laboratories to import the Russian vaccine to India for emergency use.

The rollout of the Russian vaccine is expected to augment India's third phase of the vaccination drive which commenced today amid a record rise in COVID-19 cases.

India for the first time has reported more than 4 lakh new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. A total of 4,01,993 fresh COVID-19 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours taking the cumulative count of the cases to 1,91,64,969, the Union Health Ministry reported on Saturday.

Sputnik V is the third vaccine India has given the go-ahead to after ''Covishield'', developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and ''Covaxin'', the indigenous vaccine manufactured by Bharat Biotech. Covishield is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

Diplomatic sources had told ANI that India will get a substantive number of vaccines in the first tranche and the supply will continue in instalments. India is expecting 5 million vials of Sputnik vaccines by the next month.

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