2nd batch of Sputnik V vaccine lands in Argentina

Argentina received a new shipment of the Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V on Saturday as part of its fight against COVID-19.

The new shipment of 300-thousand doses of the vaccine arrived from Moscow on the same day that a variant of the virus detected in the United Kingdom was identified in the South American country.

Everything went "according to schedule", Aerolineas Argentinas airline president Pablo Ceriani told the Associated Press from the airport after the vaccines arrived.

As in other countries that have started vaccination programs, in Argentina, health personnel who work in intensive care units and care for COVID-19 patients have been the first to receive the vaccine.

This second shipment will be used to inoculate the health workers who were injected with the first doses from a previous batch which arrived last month.

Fears are growing of a second wave of the virus in the country, with 12,332 new cases confirmed by the government on Friday and a total of 1,783,047 identified since the beginning of the pandemic.

At least 45,227 have died in the country from the disease.