New Delhi (NVI): Mexico became the first country in North America to approve the emergency use authorization of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said today.
In a official statement, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund said, “The registration of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus is approved by the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risk of Mexico (COFEPRIS).”
“Mexico has become the first country of North America to approve Sputnik V and the 17th country in the world,” it added.
RDIF also said that the vaccine was approved under the emergency use authorization procedure without additional clinical trials in the country.
RDIF’s CEO Kirill Dmitriev said, “We welcome the decision of regulatory authorities of Mexico to register Sputnik V vaccine and include it in the national portfolio of vaccines against coronavirus.”
“Partnership between Russia and Mexico will save many lives and protect the population by using one of the best vaccines in the world. High efficacy of Sputnik V was confirmed yesterday by data published in one of the most respected medical journals The Lancet,” Dmitriev was quoted as saying in the statement.
The latest data of Phase-3 clinical trial published in the Lancet journal confirmed that, the efficacy of ‘Sputnik V’ vaccine is 91.6 per cent in providing full protection against severe cases of COVID-19, the RDIF statement said.
Mexico will receive the first batches of the 7.4 million doses of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine between February and April, according to the media reports.
Earlier, Sputnik V had been approved in Russia, Belarus, Argentina, Bolivia, Serbia, Algeria, Palestine, Venezuela, Paraguay, Turkmenistan, Hungary, UAE, Iran, Republic of Guinea, Tunisia and Armenia.
So far, Mexico has registered 1.87 million coronavirus cases with over 159,500 deaths, the Johns Hopkins University data shows.
-RJV
