Serbia is preparing to supply Sputnik V to all of Europe and other continents
In the capital of Serbia, negotiations were held between a delegation of Russian virologists and Serbian colleagues, as well as representatives of the country’s relevant departments.
The parties discussed and became familiar with Serbia’s readiness to produce Sputnik V, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
As part of the Russian delegation, Serbia was visited by specialists from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which is promoting the Russian vaccine, Russian scientists from the N.F. Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, which developed it. Gamaleya.
The Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko was also present at the meeting of the guests with their colleagues.
First, the Russian delegation visited the Torlak Institute of Virology in Belgrade to assess its technical and personnel capabilities. Next, negotiations were held at the Palace of Serbia with the participation of the Minister of Innovation and Technological Development of Serbia, Nenad Popovic.
At the subsequent press conference, which was attended by a PolitNavigator correspondent, the parties spoke about the agreements reached.
So, according to the participants in the joint work, Torlak’s capacity is only sufficient for packaging the vaccine substance, packaging and distribution, but at the same time, the preparatory work will take a couple of months.
To fully launch production, it takes about nine months to purchase and install new equipment, train personnel, in which Russian specialists will be directly involved.
According to Popovic, Serbia is extremely interested in this process: firstly, it is necessary to vaccinate its own population. Despite the fact that the country currently has drugs from three manufacturers - Pfizer, the Russian Gamaleya Center and the Chinese company Sinopharm, according to the latest data, more than 40% of Serbs who have signed up for vaccination want to be vaccinated with Sputnik V.
“Serbia could supply the vaccine to the whole of Europe and some countries on other continents. At the moment, seven European countries, including Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic, have expressed their interest in having Sputnik V begin production on our territory as soon as possible,” the Serbian minister emphasized.
The Russian Ambassador, in turn, noted that he is very pleased with today’s agreements.
“Thus, a new phase opens in cooperation in testing Serbia’s capabilities to produce this vaccine. And this will provide our Balkan friends with the opportunity to become a country that will produce vaccines not only for themselves, but also for the region, and this is very important and relevant.
As for Russia and its ability and willingness to provide assistance and support in the production of the drug, we do not think of the vaccine as a means of global competition. Our goal is to have friends, to cooperate with them, including to defeat the virus,” concluded Botsan-Kharchenko.
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