Sputnik V debuts on CoWIN portal as India ramps up vaccination drive against COVID-19

Russia's Sputnik V which is said to be the third COVID-19 vaccine to be administered in India has made its debut this Tuesday on the CoWIN portal. Two batches of Sputnik V have arrived in the country in the month of May with more batches to come to aid the country's vaccination process. Moreover, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) which handles the supply of Sputnik V have been eyeing to manufacture nearly 850 million doses of the vaccine in India annually. The CoWIN portal for vaccination which earlier showed Covaxin and Covishield as the vaccines for COVID-19 in India has now added Sputnik V to the list.

Snip of CoWIN portal showing Sputnik V

850 million Sputnik V doses to be produced in India

While speaking with Republic earlier this month, RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev stated that three million vaccine doses will be sent to India in the coming weeks, while India will start indigenous production of the Russian developed vaccine to produce 850 million doses this year to help India's fight in containing the deadly virus as well as help other countries to combat the virus surge. Kirill Dmitriev stated that Sputnik V is a "Russian-Indian vaccine" since its clinical trials were conducted in India and the Russian government had been in close contact with the Indian scientists during the development of the vaccine.

Russian Ambassador to India, Nikolay Kudashev Sunday expressed happiness over the rollout of Sputnik V vaccines in India amid country's fight against the second wave of deadly coronavirus (COVID-19). The imported doses of the Sputnik V vaccine are presently priced at Rs 948 (5 per cent GST) per dose which sums up to Rs 995.40 per dose. However, the price of the vaccine is likely to come down after local manufacturing and supply begins. Local manufacturing is expected to make the vaccines available for commercial usage from July after which, it will steadily ramp up over the next few months, according to Deepak Sapra, chief executive officer, API & Services at Dr Reddy’s.

The efficacy of Sputnik V is 97.6 per cent based on the analysis of data on the Coronavirus infection rate among those in Russia vaccinated with both components of Sputnik V from December 5, 2020, to March 31, 2021. To date, Sputnik V is registered in 65 countries with a total population of over 3.2 billion people. India became the 60th country to approve Sputnik V. Post-vaccination studies in several countries demonstrated that Sputnik V is the safest and most effective vaccine against coronavirus. Sputnik V ranks second among Coronavirus vaccines globally in terms of the number of approvals issued by government regulators.