Vietnam Looks to Make Sputnik V Vaccine This Year: VnExpress

(Bloomberg) --

A Vietnam health ministry research center is negotiating with the developer of the Sputnik V vaccine to obtain its technology for production in the Southeast Asian country this year, VnExpress reported.

Russia’s Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology would transfer the technology needed to produce its Sputnik V vaccine to the country in two phases, the news website reported, citing the Center for Research and Production of Vaccines and Biologicals, or Polyvac. No specific time frame was provided.

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Gamaleya would at first provide Polyvac with semi-finished doses to be completed in Vietnam, VnExpress said. The Vietnam research unit would later produce the vaccine from scratch, the report said.

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The ministry in March granted Polyvac permission to import the Sputnik V vaccine, though it’s unclear how many doses the center would buy, VnExpress said.

Vietnam has an agreement to buy 30 million AstraZenaca Plc doses and obtain 38.9 million doses of the vaccine through Covax. It has registered to buy about 10 million additional doses through Covax and signed a deal for 31 million doses made by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE this year, according to the news website.

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