President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has questioned Russia on why they are selling millions of doses of the Sputnik V vaccine abroad, but are not making progress in vaccinating their own citizens.
“Overall I must say we still wonder why Russia is offering theoretically millions and millions of doses while not sufficiently progressing in vaccinating their own people,” she remarked. “This is also a question that I think should be answered.”
The vaccine which is yet to get EU regulatory approval is being distributed to a growing number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe including North Macedonia and Montenegro. Bosnia and Herzegovina have also started vaccinating using Sputnik.
Von der Leyen said that Russia should allow inspections of its manufacturing sites and should submit all trial data for scrutiny in order to receive regulatory approval. The Russian regulators replied via Twitter stating they had already applied for EU approval.
EU Member States Croatia and Slovakia have expressed interest in using the Russian vaccine. Under emergency circumstances, EU states can authorize the use of a vaccine without approval from the European Medicines Agency. In such cases, the Member State is liable, not the manufacturer.
The EU is continuing to struggle with a slow vaccine rollout rate largely due to manufacturing issues with Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
Serbia is leading the way in the region in terms of vaccination rollouts and it’s using not just Sputnik V but Pfizer and the Chinese-made Sinopharm as well. The Serbian government also announced that it hopes to start manufacturing Sputnik V.
So far, Albania has refused to consider the Russian vaccine despite apparent issues in procuring other options. The Russian Embassy in Tirana publicly reminded Prime Minister Edi Rama of its availability but the offer was not well received. Rama called the suggestion inappropriate. Days later a Russian diplomat was expelled from the country for allegedly violating COVID-19 measures. Russia responded by expelling an Albanian diplomat from Moscow.
