Russia is ready to launch the production of foreign vaccines against the COVID-19 coronavirus, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said.
At the same time, he stressed that the decision on foreign vaccine manufacturing in the country should be made by the Ministry of Health.
"This is the prerogative of the Ministry of Health. But if there is a task for the industry, then we will be able to implement it for sure, this is a matter of expediency, social and economic sense," the head of the Industry and Trade Ministry said, answering the question about the possibility of launching the production of foreign vaccines in the next year.
To date, Russia has approved six coronavirus vaccines: Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona, Covivac, Sputnik Light, Sputnik M and EpiVacCorona-N.
In December 2021, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said that foreign producers of coronavirus vaccines have made no approaches about registering their vaccines in Russia so far. In mid-September, it became known that the Russian pharma company R-Pharm has started the production of a vaccine against COVID-19 for exports.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020 and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has surpassed 290 million, with over 5.4 million deaths. The U.S. COVID-19 cases totaled 55,069,347.
