Serbia started the production of the Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) announced on Wednesday.
Serbia has become the first country in Southern Europe to produce Sputnik V, the statement reads, adding that the production meets the best vaccine manufacturing standards.
Serbia started vaccination against coronavirus with the Russian vaccine on January 6, 2021.
“Efficacy of Sputnik V is 91.6% as confirmed by the data published in the Lancet, one of the world’s oldest and most respected medical journals,” the statement reads.
“The vaccine is based on a proven and well-studied platform of human adenoviral vectors and uses two different vectors for the two shots in a course of vaccination, providing immunity with a longer duration than vaccines using the same delivery mechanism for both shots,” it reads.
Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund said that the production of Sputnik V vaccine was successfully launched in Serbia as part of the agreements between RDIF and the Torlak Institute.
“Serbia became the first European country to start producing the Russian vaccine. Since the beginning of the year, Sputnik V has been actively used to vaccinate the population of the country, and the scale of vaccination may be significantly increased thanks to the launch of local production,” Dmitriev said.
