MOSCOW: The Kremlin is convinced that the World Health Organization (WHO) will recognise Russia’s flagship Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine within a few months, the Interfax news agency cited Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying on Sunday.
The Kremlin on Tuesday said Russia had still not handed over all the information needed for the vaccine to be approved by the WHO because of differences in regulatory standards.
“I am deeply convinced that literally within a few months... the WHO will approve Sputnik and it will also then be possible to move forward on this path with the Europeans,” Interfax quoted Peskov as saying.
The WHO expects to receive the relevant documents by the end of the year, RIA reported, citing WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic.
In a documentary about the COVID-19 pandemic, aired on state television channel Rossiya 1 in Russia’s Far East ahead of scheduled programming in Moscow, Peskov said mortality in Russia was very high, describing it as a tragedy and something that preoccupied President Vladimir Putin and his presidential administration.
Russia reported 1,023 deaths from COVID-19 on Sunday. The country’s overall death toll is the third worst in the world, behind only the United States and Brazil, according to Reuters calculations.
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