Russia has acknowledged that it "did not understand" the demands of the World Health Organization and failed to provide the information needed to evaluate and possibly certify its vaccines against Covid, a year after the release of Sputnik V.
"We have not yet provided the information we needed to deliver because we had a different perception of the information" we should actually be transmitting and "the way we should provide it," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peshkov.
"We have different standards," he said, adding that Russia was "gradually adapting to these demands" and that there was no reason to blame the Russian authorities.
The development of the Sputnik V vaccine was solemnly announced by President Vladimir Putin in the summer of 2020 and was released a few months later. The vaccine is used by dozens of countries around the world and its effectiveness has been certified by The Lancet review.
But for now, it has not been approved by either the World Health Organization or the European Union's health authorities, as Russia is unable to provide the necessary evidence to prove it safe and effective.
But Russia has also failed to persuade its own population to be vaccinated with Sputnik V, as there is widespread suspicion of the Russian authorities.
"The rest of the vaccine producers were able to understand what the World Health Organization was asking for in order to be certified. "Only 'ours' do not understand it," the anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny wrote ironically on Twitter today.
"And the result is that our own citizens do not trust this vaccine, because the WHO cannot approve it," FBK commented.
No foreign vaccine against Covid has been approved in Russia.
According to the Gogov website, 42,2% of the Russian population is vaccinated against the disease.
Russia has officially recorded 10 million cases and 291.749 deaths.
But according to Russia's Rosstat statistics agency, the total number of virus-related deaths in Russia was 520.000 at the end of October.
Source: RES-EAP