A health worker is preparing a dose of Russian Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine at a hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Photographer: Anita Pouchard Serra / Bloomberg
Photographer: Anita Pouchard Serra / Bloomberg
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she is ready to consider using the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in Germany, while trying to allay concerns about her country’s Covid-19 inoculation program.
In a rare television appearance on Tuesday, Merkel said the Russian shooting could be used to protect people in the European Union, as long as it was approved by the European Medicines Agency.
“I talked to the Russian president about exactly that,” she said.
It was the first time she was interviewed in prime time in June – when Germany approved measures to offset the economic consequences of the pandemic. She spoke shortly after the medical journal The Lancet published an interim analysis of an advanced clinical study showing that Sputnik V provided strong protection against Covid-19.
“We received good data today from the Russian vaccine,” Merkel said in an interview with public broadcaster ARD. “Every vaccine is welcome in the EU, but only after it has been approved by the EMA.”
The chancellor and her government were set on fire after she pushed Germany to relinquish responsibility for negotiating vaccination contracts to the European Commission. Subsequent Delivery delays have been blamed for slowing down photo distribution, with Germany – and its European partners – declining countries such as the US and the UK.
Read more: Merkel’s handprints are everywhere German vaccine failures
Merkel reiterated her promise that all Germans will receive a first vaccination against the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of September, as long as drug manufacturers honor their delivery commitments.
Even if the new shootings are not approved, there will be enough supplies despite previous delays, she said after crisis talks with pharmaceutical directors, cabinet ministers, the country’s 16 state prime ministers and EU commission officials.
Germany has vaccinated about 3 out of 100 people, compared to 10 in the US and almost 15 in the UK, according to him Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. While Britain and America began immunization a few weeks earlier, due to faster approval, Germany’s launch was hampered by supply problems.
Read more: Merkel pledges summer vaccine commitment with “difficult weeks” ahead
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on Tuesday admitsaid the EU should have ordered more Covid-19 vaccines, while defending the bloc’s agreement to negotiate jointly with pharmaceutical companies.
“We have made a conscious decision to provide the vaccines together and distribute them fairly,” Scholz said in a virtual forum about Europe. “But we must also be critical admit that more should have been ordered, “he added, stressing support for a common European strategy.
Scholz said the priority now is to speed up deliveries and “expand the vaccine’s production capacity very quickly with all the resources we have at our disposal.”
– With the assistance of Iain Rogers and Daniel Schaefer