UPDATE 1-Putin says equipment a problem in production of Russian COVID-19 vaccines

(Recasts to focus on production challenges)

MOSCOW, Oct 29 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on
Thursday that Russia was facing challenges scaling up production
of its main COVID-19 vaccine due to problems with equipment
availability, but hoped to start mass vaccinations by the end of
the year.

Russia is currently testing its main experimental vaccine,
known as Sputnik V, on 40,000 people in Moscow and outside of
the trial has already begun vaccinating frontline workers, but
only in small numbers.

Earlier estimates by Russian officials of how many doses
Russia could produce this year have been cut back, from 30
million to just over 2 million, with trade and industry minister
Denis Manturov recently citing challenges in scaling up
production of the vaccine.

"There is one question right now and that's providing for
the industrial production (of the vaccine) in the necessary
volumes," Putin said, speaking by video link to an investor
forum in Russia.

"There are certain problems with this, related to the
availability, or lack, of the necessary equipment," he said.
"Hard materials, that are needed for the roll-out of mass
production."

Moscow aims to produce 300,000 doses of the vaccine this
month, Manturov has said, followed by 800,000 in November, and
1.5 million in December, reaching significantly higher volumes
in early 2021.

Putin also referenced a rival vaccine, produced by British
drugmaker AstraZeneca with Oxford University, that uses
a chimpanzee adenovirus as a vector, rather than a human
adenovirus vector.

"We know that many European countries have already signed
contract for deliveries of the vaccine from Britain," Putin
said.

"Unfortunately, our colleagues there have seen some
setbacks, they are making their vaccine on the basis of the
monkey adenovirus," Putin said.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Gleb Stolyarov and Polina
Ivanova; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Jason Neely and
Susan Fenton)