MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peru to produce Sputnik V vaccine locally starting in 2023

”Without vaccination there will be no full economic reactivation,” Castillo said.

Peru's President Pedro Castillo has announced a plant to manufacture the Russian-developed Sputnik V COVID-19 locally will be set up in the country, for which the government has allocated US $ 705 million worth of funding.

Castillo explained the move aimed at helping the country go through a third wave of the disease.

“As a result of negotiations between the Peruvian government and the Russian government, the installation of a Sputnik vaccine production plant in the country has been coordinated,” Castillo said in a broadcast message.

After the announcement, Castillo passed on the microphone to Health Minister Hernando Cevallos to elaborate on the details. The minister told the press that the plant will start operations in 2023.

Castillo had also announced that the arrivals of shipments of Sinopharm and Pfizer vaccines were being rescheduled to an earlier point in time to speed up immunization. ”Without vaccination, there will be no full economic reactivation,” Castillo said.

“For September we have scheduled the arrival of 12 million vaccines; with this, we hope to meet the vaccination goal for 50% of the population,” the president went on.

Some 8.5 million Peruvians have received 2 doses of the covid-19 vaccine, representing 26% of the country's population. Peruvian health authorities have estimated that the third wave might cause between 67,300 and 115,000 deaths.

The president reported that the government has provided resources for some 705 million dollars for the implementation of a plan to face the highly-feared third wave in a country where some 198,000 people have already died of COVID-19 out of around 2.1 million infections since the pandemic broke out in March 2020.

Castillo made a series of announcements related to the reactivation of the economy, lowering the price of domestic gas, vaccines against covid-19 and confirmed that his ministerial cabinet is in constant evaluation.

According to a rece3nt survey, Castillo's rate of approval after less than two months in office is 43.5%.