The demand for the Russian vaccine against coronavirus is consistently high in many countries of the world, individual European states want to negotiate possible purchases on the basis of bilateral relations, without waiting for centralized EU decisions, said the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov.
At the same time, he noted that he did not know the nuances of the situation with the procurement of Sputnik V by Slovakia.
“I do not know the nuances, so I will not say anything. There, in general, you see that in the EU, on the one hand, there is this centralized agency, on the other hand, there is a desire of individual countries, without waiting for any centralized decisions, on the basis of bilateral contacts, already negotiate possible purchases. There is a consistently high demand in many and many countries of the world. This is what is such a fairly obvious reality and what we are working with now”, – he told reporters, answering a question about the situation with the Russian vaccine price Slovakia.
The purchase of the Sputnik V vaccine in the Russian Federation in early March at the initiative of the then Prime Minister of Slovakia Igor Matovic and the head of the Ministry of Health Marek Krajci caused a scandal in the ranks of the ruling coalition, since neither his colleagues in the government, nor the President of the Republic Zuzana Chaputova were informed about this. who objected to the use of the vaccine without the approval of the European regulator. And the leaders of the coalition parties, who had previously had great claims to the activities of the prime minister and the head of the Ministry of Health, demanded their resignation, threatening to dissolve the coalition.
In this regard, the head of the Ministry of Health resigned in early March, and at the end of the month the Prime Minister followed his example. At the end of March, Chaputova accepted Matovich’s resignation and on April 1, approved the new composition of the government, headed by Prime Minister Eduard Heger. Matovich took the post of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in the Cabinet.
The Sputnik V vaccine has been approved in nearly 60 countries with a total population of over 1.5 billion. Sputnik V ranks second in the world in terms of the number of approvals received by government regulators. The vaccine efficacy at 91.6% is confirmed by the publication of data in the leading medical journal The Lancet.