Vietnam receives the first shipment of Sputnik V vaccine after Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son’s visit to the Russian Federation

In the official visit to the Russian Federation on September 27th, Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son had a working session with the leader of the Russian Direct Investment Fund on the supply vaccine, transfer of technology in the processing and manufacturing of Sputnik V vaccine in Vietnam.

Minister Bui Thanh Son highly appreciated the fact that the Russian Direct Investment Fund approved and transferred biological products to manufacture the Sputnik V vaccine, proposing to continue providing vaccines to Vietnam as soon as possible according to the agreed process.

On this occasion, the first shipment of Sputnik V has also received by Company for Vaccines and Biological Product No.1 (VABIOTECH) in Ha Noi this afternoon. The handover ceremony took place at Noi Bai airport with the participations of Ambassador of The Russian Federation to Vietnam Gennady Bezdetko, Deputy Minister of Health Tran Van Thuan, leaders of the management, diplomatic and commercial agencies of the two countries with Chairman of VABIOTECH Do Tuan Dat and Vice President of SOVICO Group Dinh Viet Phuong.

It is known that VABIOTECH – an enterprise under the Ministry of Health is a partner to receive the transfer of Sputnik V vaccine packaging and manufacturing technology of the Russian Direct Investment Fund in Vietnam under the contract of production, technology transfer and import 40 million vaccine doses in the first phase from now to the June of 2022 under the 3-party agreement signed by SOVICO group, VABIOTECH and Russian Direct Investment Fund. The parties are planning to increase vaccine production capacity. Previously, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long directly participated in the discussion with the partner country to reach an agreement between the two sides. On September 26th, VABIOTECH announced the successful production of the first batch of Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine in Vietnam, meeting the standard requirements analyzed and appraised by the Gamalaya Institute (Russia Federation).

According to Minister Bui Thanh Son, the VABIOTECH’s successful production of the Sputnik V vaccine from semi-finished products is very important meaning. In Vietnam, Sputnik V has been the only vaccine that successed in technology transfer. Thereby, creating a prmise for not only meeting the domestic demand of vaccines but also gradually turning Vietnam into a production center for the Sputnik V vaccine in Southeast Asia.

The number of vaccines that have just been delivered today along with the number of vaccines producing by VABIOTECH will be used for the Nation Immunization Program with the goal of quickly completing vaccinated for citizens.

Sputnik V vaccine is developed based on the world’s first registered vector adenovirus, the injection schedule is 2 doses, the interval between 2 doses is 3 weeks. According to the result of clinical trials, the Sputnik V vaccine is up to 91.6% effective. Particularly for volunteers over 60 years old, this rate is 91.8%. After the injection, 98% of volunteers had

antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The Sputnik V vaccine was approved for emergency use by the Ministry of Health on March 23rd.

Vaccines and technology transfer for vaccine production against Covid-19 are one of the top priorities and hot topics during the visits of leaders of The State, Party and Government of Vietnam over the past time. The successful production of Sputnik V vaccine in Vietnam is also the result of diplomatic efforts from the highest level as well as the enterprises with the desire to self-produce Covid-19 vaccines, towards being proactive in the herd immunity program in the coming years, living safely with the pandemic in “new normal” condition.