HomeNewsTrendsHealthRussia to distribute over 1 million Sputnik V shots at home by year-end: Minister

Russia to distribute over 1 million Sputnik V shots at home by year-end: Minister

Russia, which began rolling out the vaccine in early December, has so far produced over 2 million doses in total, Industry Minister Denis Manturov told state television.

December 30, 2020 / 19:54 IST
Story continues below Advertisement
Source: Reuters
Source: Reuters

Russia will have supplied more than 1 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V to its own national inoculation programme by the end of this year, a government minister said on Wednesday.

Russia, which began rolling out the vaccine in early December, has so far produced over 2 million doses in total, Industry Minister Denis Manturov told state television.

Story continues below Advertisement

The Sputnik V vaccine is administered in two doses, which use different components, 21 days apart.

The current production rate will allow the vaccine to be rolled out across Russia's regions and be exported to other countries at the same time, Manturov said.

COVID-19 Vaccine
Frequently Asked Questions

View more

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.
View more
+ Show