PRAGUE (AP) – Russia on Thursday called on Slovakia to return the Sputnik V vaccines it had received “due to multiple breaches of contract”.
The official Twitter account of the Sputnik V vaccine stated that the Slovak drug regulator “in breach of the existing contract and in an act of sabotage” tested Sputnik V “in a laboratory that is not part of the official network of the Control Laboratory of EU Medicines ”
He wrote on Twitter that the Slovak State Institute for Drug Control “has launched a disinformation campaign against Sputnik V and is planning additional challenges”.
The Slovak institute said that the network of EU-certified laboratories only tests vaccines registered in the European Union, which is not the case with Sputnik. He added that he did not know details about the Russian-Slovak contract because he was classified.
The announcement came just hours after the Slovak regulator said it had not received enough information about the Russian vaccine from its manufacturer to be able to assess its benefits and risks. The Slovak institute said that about 80% of the requested data was not provided.
According to a study published in the Lancet, the vaccine delivered in Slovakia is different from the Sputnik V vaccine, which is 91% considered effective and appears to prevent inoculated people from becoming seriously ill with COVID-19.
Sputnik V has not yet been approved for use in the EU, but the body’s regulator, the European Medicines Agency, began an ongoing review of the vaccine last month. The Slovak Drugs Agency has said that the EU-reviewed Sputnik V vaccine is also different from the one sent to Slovakia.
The Russian side called it “fake news.”
“All Sputnik V batches are of the same quality and are subject to rigorous quality control at the Gamaleya Institute,” he said. “The quality of Sputnik V has been confirmed by regulators in 59 countries.”
However, the Slovaks said that these vaccines seem to “have only a common name”.
Slovakia’s coalition government collapsed last month after Prime Minister Igor Matovic orchestrated a secret deal to buy 2 million Sputnik V vaccines despite the disagreements of his coalition partners. Matovic welcomed the first 200,000 Russian vaccines at an airport on March 1.
Matovic, who now serves as finance minister and deputy prime minister in the new government, who took the oath last week, was in Moscow on Thursday to discuss additional vaccine deliveries. The Russians said that Kirill Dmitriev, the executive director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which financed the vaccine and sells it abroad, had a “productive meeting” with Matovic.
However, the fund asked Slovaks to send Sputnik V to an EU-certified laboratory for testing and asked them to return the vaccines they had received so that they “could be used in other countries”.
“Congratulations, idiots,” Matovic said in a Facebook message to opponents of the Sputnik agreement. He said he was not prepared to give it up and plans to announce his next steps on Friday.
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Daria Litvinova from Moscow contributed.
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