Russia is taking back Sputnik vaccines that were sent to Slovakia

Pointing to a breach of contract, it is recovering a vaccine of 200,000 doses against Sputnik V, which was delivered to the country in March after an agreement was reached with Prime Minister Igor Matovic on the purchase. Matovi has failed since then – Precisely because of the purchase of Russian vaccines – and delivery to the Prime Minister, and the vaccines are in the warehouse, after the Slovaks received a different type of vaccine than the one being tested by the European Medicines Agency, the batches they received did not have the same batch number. For this reason, the authorization procedure must be fully implemented, which may require missing documents.

First he contacted the Russian manufacturer of the State Medicines Control Agency (KL), from where they did not come, then ordered it from Hungary, but OGYÉI did not send anything to Bratislava, citing the confidentiality clause in the contract.

On Thursday a ŠÚKL stated that Items sent to Slovakia showed different characteristics than those used in studies published in The Lancet. Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Russian sovereign wealth fund (RDIF), which is responsible for marketing the vaccine abroad, has vehemently rejected these allegations, describing them as “fake news.” Reuters.

But the controversy did not end here: according to the Russians, the Slovaks did not test the vaccine in a suitable laboratory, so the state violated its contractual obligations and committed “an act of sabotage.” The RDIF said it had requested the Slovak government to send some batches to an accredited laboratory in the European Union for further testing, as well as to return the main shipment to Russia.

The vaccine manufacturer said in a statement posted on its official website on Twitter, “RDIF … sent a letter on April 6, 2021 requesting that the vaccine be returned due to multiple breaches of contract so that the product can be used in other countries.” .

They added, “All batches of Sputnik V are subject to the same quality and strict quality control at Gamaleja.”

Incidentally, the Slovak Medicines Agency had previously complained that it was not able to assess the benefits and risks of Sputnik V with sufficient accuracy due to the lack of data provided by Moscow on preclinical studies, manufacturing and clinical trials.

“A large chunk of the data, around 80 percent, was not submitted even after several requests,” KL said regarding the case.