The first batch of Sputnik V vaccine produced in Vietnam

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), an investor in the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus, and VABIOTECH, one of Vietnam's leading pharmaceutical companies, announced the production of a test batch of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus.

The first validation samples taken from the produced batch will be shipped to the Gamaleya Center for quality control. RDIF and VABIOTECH are actively implementing the technology transfer. Sputnik V was granted approval by the Ministry of Health of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on March 23, 2021.

"RDIF and VABIOTECH are actively cooperating in the technology transfer process to provide easier access to Sputnik V for population of Vietnam. As the pandemic is yet far from over and new, more dangerous variants of coronavirus are being detected in various regions of the world, RDIF is increasing capacities for production of Sputnik V to speed up the vaccination with one of the best vaccines in the world," said Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

"It is our great pleasure to work with RDIF to bring Sputnik V to Vietnam to fight the pandemic. We hope the cooperation between RDIF and VABIOTECH will help provide quality and affordable COVID-19 vaccine to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries," said Dr Dat Tuan Do, President of VABIOTECH.

To date, Sputnik V has been registered in 68 countries with a total population of over 3.7 billion people, which is nearly half of the global population.

Sputnik V 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.

Sputnik V has a number of key advantages including its efficacy which is about 97.6 per cent, and pricing which is about USD 10 per shot, making it affordable around the world.