Vaccination With Russia's Sputnik-V To Cost 'Less Than $20'

The financial backers and developers of Russia’s Sputnik-V coronavirus vaccine say the two shots required to vaccinate one person will cost “less than $20” on international markets and will be free of charge for Russian citizens.

The international market price for Sputnik-V unveiled on November 24 is cheaper than some other Western rivals, such as a vaccine produced by Pfizer, which costs around $18 per shot.

However, the Russian vaccine is more expensive than one produced by AstraZeneca, which will be sold in Europe for around $3 per shot.

Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, RDIF, said in a statement that Moscow and its foreign partners have the capacity to make more than 1 billion doses starting from next year, enough to vaccinate over 500 million people.

“The current agreements between RDIF and leading foreign pharmaceutical companies allow the Sputnik-V vaccine to be produced abroad for 500 million people per year, starting from 2021. RDIF is currently considering additional applications from a number of countries and companies to further increase production capacity,” the statement said.

In a separate statement, RDIF, Russia’s Health Ministry, and the state-run Gamaleya National Research Center said that new clinical trial data shows that Sputnik-V was 91.4 percent effective on Day 28 and over 95 percent effective on Day 42.

They said that 22,000 volunteers had been vaccinated with the first dose and more than 19,000 with both doses.

Trials are also taking place in the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Belarus, according to the statement.

Russia was the first country to approve its coronavirus vaccine for widespread use by the public, registering Sputnik-V in August, ahead of the start of the large-scale trial in September.

The vaccine, which has already been administered in Russia to health-care workers and other high-risk groups, has not yet been evaluated by the European Union’s drug regulator.

Russia continues to experience a surge of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, with many suspecting real numbers are higher than those reported.

The country notched a record high of new cases, with a federal monitoring service reporting 25,173 daily infections on November 23.

Despite skyrocketing cases, authorities insist there are no plans to impose a second lockdown or to shut businesses nationwide.

Amid an alarming surge in coronavirus infections in much of the world, hopes have been raised that a series of promising new vaccines may become widely available by spring of next year, with the first doses coming out as soon as December.

Around a dozen vaccines are currently in development worldwide.

With reporting by Reuters