MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine lab announces local production of Sputnik V vaccine ends

The use of the Sputnik V declined as patients preferred other brands to be allowed to travel to destinations where those with the Russian product were deemed unvaccinated

The Argentine laboratory manufacturing Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine has announced it would halt the line to target other types of diseases, it was reported in Buenos Aires.

Richmond Laboratories CEO Marcelo Figueiras confirmed that the deal was over after over 9 million doses had been delivered and that the pharmaceutical company was “closing agreements” for the production of other vaccines both for COVID-19 and other ailments.

“We are working on the completion of the plant. The agreement with Sputnik ended, we produced everything we had to do and we have already delivered it; there were almost nine million doses which at that time was a commendable task of the whole team,” said Figueiras in a radio interview.

“Now we are focused on making other types of vaccines with other platforms, both for coronavirus and for other diseases such as flu, HPV, varicella, for which we are negotiating,” he added while insisting Richmond had “the capacity to supply the whole region” with their new lines of products.

“By the end of the year we expect it to be finished; by March the validations will be done, which are very long processes; but we can consider that it was done in record time”, he added.

In February 2021, Richmond signed an agreement with Russia's Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to produce the Sputnik V vaccine locally.

Last week, Argentina registered 4,482 new infections and 42 deaths related to COVID-19, a 27 % drop and a 68 % increase from the previous week, according to Health Ministry data, bringing the total number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic to 9,708,420 and the number of deaths to 129,897.

In addition, 294 patients with COVID-19 remained hospitalized in intensive care units with ICU bed occupancy standing at 41.3 % for any disease in both private and public healthcare centers combined.

The Health Ministry's Public Vaccination Monitor showed Sunday that 117,146,112 doses of different vaccines against COVID-19 had been distributed, of which 109,474,175 were applied. According to this report, 40,982,909 people took their first shot, 37,821,523 went for the second injection, and 3,151,848 received an additional dose. Those getting the first booster amounted to 21,558,286 people while 5,916,013 were injected with the second supplementary dose.