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MOSCOW, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Delays in international deliveries
of the second dose of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine will be fully
resolved this month, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF),
responsible for the shot's marketing abroad, said in a statement
on Wednesday.
The Russian vaccine uses two doses made of different
components and administered 21 days apart. Several countries
that have begun receiving shipments have complained in recent
weeks about delays in the delivery of batches of second doses.
"Sputnik V team confirms that owing to a major scale-up in
vaccine production capacity, temporary second component delivery
delays that occurred due to this production scale-up will be
fully restored in August," the statement said.
RDIF has struck manufacturing partnerships abroad with
producers in 14 countries, the statement said, and will further
increase its capacity next month due to a partnership with
India's Serum Institute.
"Sputnik V will accelerate work with other vaccine producers
on the mix-and-match approach," it added. Initial small-scale
trials of a vaccine shot mixing a dose of Sputnik V with a dose
of a shot produced by AstraZeneca are ongoing and
recently reported good results, RDIF said.
Reuters has previously reported that some manufacturers of
the Sputnik V shot have found the second dose easier to produce
than the first.
Argentina, among the first countries to widely use the
two-dose Sputnik V, ratcheted up pressure on Moscow last month
over delays in the arrival of second doses that are holding back
the South American nation's inoculation campaign.
"At this point the entire contract is at risk of being
publicly cancelled," the government wrote in a letter in July.
Also in July, an Indian distributor of the shot said India's
full rollout of the vaccine will have to be put on hold until
producers provide equal quantities of both doses.
(Writing by Polina Ivanova; Editing by David Gregorio)
